desolate

“Tapeheads” captures a specific moment in Los Angeles history, sure to be nostalgic for some, from a desolate downtown to a percolating music scene.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 6, 2026

"A fire is devastating. People who want to come will come anyway. But it’s not the same seeing the green hills as seeing them completely desolate and black."

From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026

On the desolate dunes of the Outer Banks, the Wright brothers conquered the sky in 1903, proving that controlled, powered flight was no longer a human fantasy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026

West Ham manager Nuno Espirito Santo was desolate, insisting everyone in the game is now confused as to what constituted a foul in the penalty area at set-pieces.

From BBC ● May 10, 2026

Shackleton knew—everyone knew—that they could not hold out on that desolate spot all winter.

From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong

But your misrepresentation which pained me most, in fact desolates me to the extent that I am unfit for work, is your statement that I weigh 200 Ib.

From Time Magazine Archive

The sudden death of Leontes' young son desolates him.

From Time Magazine Archive

He visits Barbara's soup kitchen shelter and proves with an open checkbook that he can bribe the poor and buy the Army, which desolates Barbara.

From Time Magazine Archive

I hold out my hand to him when he is drowning, I welcome him like a brother, and in return, he desolates my hearth!

From The Mystery of Orcival by Émile Gaboriau

The low wind through your garden prates Of one this twilight desolates.

From The Dreamers And Other Poems by Theodosia Garrison

Hospital director Dr Muhammad Abu Salima has called on the WHO and the UN to help the medical teams and patients "leave this desolated place".

From BBC ● Nov. 19, 2023

At the same time, Wallerstein could offer a mild reassurance: "It would certainly not be great, but it is not necessarily the desolated moonscape that people sometimes imagine it would be."

From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2022

Even in the depths of the pandemic — even when the world locked down, leaving billions isolated and desolated — there were those who danced.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 16, 2021

Everywhere in this desolated settlement, the forest, whose decline the episode had just detailed, is reclaiming its space.

From New York Times ● Apr. 10, 2019

But there were not many black people visible on this day and Paradise had the look of a town desolated by plague or the rumor of plague.

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy

When D’Amore isn’t speaking — and for most of those three minutes and 40 seconds, she is silent — her body language is desolating.

From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2019

Unrelated begins in sociable aimlessness on an Italian holiday that becomes subtly desolating.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 18, 2019

“The simple way...to put an end to the savage and desolating war now waged by the slaveholders, is to strike down slavery itself, the primal cause of that war.”

From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018

It sounds as if your mother is relatively young herself, so this is a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s which is even more desolating.

From Slate ● Jul. 20, 2015

But the flowers, the smell, the movement of the leaves persist, rich, mesmerizing, desolating, infused with grief.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood