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

“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

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

From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026

Other pages of the newspaper had photographs of burning buildings, boarded-up stores, and desolate streets.

From "Betty Before X" by Ilyasah Shabazz and Renée Watson

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

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

You have no idea of the ennui that desolates the hemispheres.

From The Cross of Berny by Florence Fendall

It clothes itself in mourning and darkens its streets, and desolates its homes, and bleeds its life drops slowly in its patient agony.

From The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, August, 1864 Devoted To Literature And National Policy by Various

"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

“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

It goes beyond documentary, drawing on a visionary stage vocabulary and creating individual stories that are both desolating and stirring.

From The Guardian ● Jan. 27, 2013

From a distant radio I heard the desolating music of a dance orchestra.

From "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin