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Adjective: desolate  de-su-lut
  1. Providing no shelter or sustenance
    "the desolate surface of the moon";
    - bare, barren, bleak, stark
     
  2. Crushed by grief
    "depressed and desolate of soul"; "a low desolate wail"
Verb: desolate  de-su-lut
  1. Leave someone who needs or counts on you; leave in the lurch
    - abandon, forsake [literary], desert
     
  2. Reduce in population
    "The epidemic desolated the countryside";
    - depopulate
     
  3. Cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly
    - lay waste to, waste, devastate, ravage, scourge, lay waste

Derived forms: desolating, desolates, desolated

See also: disconsolate, inconsolable, inhospitable, unconsolable

Type of: destroy, leave, reduce, ruin, shrink

Encyclopedia: Desolate