desolate

The Burning Man festival, which takes place each year in the desolate Black Rock Desert in Nevada about 120 miles north of Reno, kicked off on Aug. 30 and runs through Sept. 7.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 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

It is the novel’s desolate mood, finally, and Ms. McPherson’s evocation of a melancholy landscape that anchor both her plot and her heroine.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026

The landscape was the most awful and desolate I had ever seen.

From "Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat" by Johnny Marciano and Emily Chenoweth

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

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 once said, "How pitiful is the ambition which desolates the world with fire and sword for the purpose of conquest and fame, compared to making our neighbors and fellowmen happy!"

From George Washington by Calista McCabe Courtenay

It desolates me to hear of her extremity," the captain answered, with a fine irony, "but I am here to do my duty.

From Helmet of Navarre by Bertha Runkle

"This was the first time I realized what an enormous task it was to take a piece of desolated desert and turn it into a blooming oasis," Zer writes.

From Salon ● Nov. 20, 2024

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

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

Already desolated by the empty nest, Alice is also distraught about their dog, Maebelle, a tiny dachshund-Chihuahua mutt who escaped in Riverside Park.

From New York Times ● Aug. 18, 2020

Still—I was desolated when he climbed away and headed back west.

From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein

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

Once again I had the desolating sense of having all along ignored what was finest in him.

From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles