desert

Forms

1.A barren area of land or desolate terrain, especially one with little water or vegetation; a wasteland.
- The desert storm was riding in its strength; the travellers lay beneath the mastery of the fell simoom. Whirling wreaths and columns of burning wind, rushed around and over them.
2.Any barren place or situation.
- By contrast, the WR route is an economic desert between Newbury and Taunton.
- So the question that is commonly asked is, why put a media incubator in a media desert and have it managed by a civil servant?
- He declared that the country was an intellectual desert; that he was famishing for spiritual aliment, and for discourse on matters beyond mere nuggets, prospectings, and the price of gold.
3.That which is deserved or merited; a just punishment or reward.
- From the highest spire of contentment / my fortune is thrown; / and fear and grief and pain for my deserts / are my hopes, since hope is gone.
- "For Aristotle, justice means giving people what they deserve, giving each person his or her due. But what is a person due? What are the relevant grounds of merit or desert?"
- "It is true that certain common sense precepts of justice, particularly those which concern the protection of liberties and rights, or which express the claims of desert, seem to contradict this contention."

1.To leave (anything that depends on one's presence to survive, exist, or succeed), especially when contrary to a promise or obligation; to abandon; to forsake.
- You can't just drive off and desert me here, in the middle of nowhere.
2.To leave one's duty or post, especially to leave a military or naval unit without permission.
- Anyone found deserting will be punished.

1.Usually of a place: abandoned, deserted, or uninhabited.
- They were marooned on a desert island in the Pacific.
- Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, / And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
- He […] went aside privately into a desert place.

Uncommon· #2705

From Middle English desert (“wilderness”), from Old French desert, from Latin dēsertum, past participle of dēserō (“to abandon”).

Generally displaced native Old English wēsten.

False cognate of Egyptian dšrt.