desolate

“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

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

The delicate pitter-patter of a drum’s cymbal is the only sound to break through the thick brick wall of the obscure performance venue, Sun Space, and reach the wide, desolate Sunland Boulevard.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2026

On de-boarding, the last station bore the look of a desolate Soviet-era structure rather than a bustling train terminal in a city where crowds typically jostle for space.

From BBC ● Apr. 19, 2026

In this baked, desolate, treeless landscape, scattered with small tin-roofed huts and dusty walking paths, we drove through a gate and onto smooth pavement.

From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French

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

From The Dreamers And Other Poems by Theodosia Garrison

To secure this we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country.

From The Boys of '61 or, Four Years of Fighting, Personal Observations with the Army and Navy by Charles Carleton Coffin

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

At the same time, Wallerstein could offer a mild reassurance: "It would certainly not be great, but it is not necessarily the desolated moonscape that people sometimes imagine it would be."

From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2022

A man in his late 40s and his son, about 10, both unnamed, are walking a desolated road.

From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2021

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

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

From "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin