desolate

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority did not dispute that assessment but defended its method for counting an area “unique because of the vast, often desolate terrain.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 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

West Ham manager Nuno Espirito Santo was desolate, insisting everyone in the game is now confused as to what constituted a foul in the penalty area at set-pieces.

From BBC ● May 10, 2026

“I wonder how it got out there in the desolate part of California like that. Somebody must have put it there. No way to tell what for.”

From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick

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

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

Her voice changes here; an indescribable alteration not only hardens, but desolates it.

From April's Lady A Novel by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

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

But there were not many black people visible on this day and Paradise had the look of a town desolated by plague or the rumor of plague.

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy

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

Unrelated begins in sociable aimlessness on an Italian holiday that becomes subtly desolating.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 18, 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

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

From "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin