desolate

Along a desolate stretch of California desert highway, next to a ramshackle home, law enforcement officials on Wednesday dug for a second day in a search for bodies.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 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

As we climbed the winding road to Bédar, we emerged into a charred and desolate landscape.

From BBC ● Jul. 13, 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

They turn onto a bumpy road off the highway, which grows bumpier and bumpier as it climbs up into wilder, more desolate country.

From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez

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

The sudden death of Leontes' young son desolates him.

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

These are but The harmless play of innocent childhood,— So fierce the storm that desolates my soul!

From The Legendary and Poetical Remains of John Roby author of 'Traditions of Lancashire', with a sketch of his literary life and character by John Roby

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

From The Dreamers And Other Poems by Theodosia Garrison

"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

She walked alone through its desolated main street, Khreschatyk.

From New York Times ● Nov. 4, 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

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

“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

As the actors take up their places, a desolating video begins to play.

From The Guardian ● May 11, 2013

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

From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles