Desolate describes places that lack people, plants, animals, etc., that make people feel welcome in a place; desolate places are, in other words, deserted or barren. Desolate can also mean “joyless” or “gloomy.”

// We drove for hours along a desolate stretch of road until finally a lone gas station appeared in the middle of nowhere.

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“... the great novelists were my guide, and none more so than my grandfather. I learnt from him complexity of motivation, a willingness to take risks with storytelling, and the vital importance of landscape. Like Thomas Hardy, my grandfather was able to make his readers see what he wrote, whether it be the beauty of Rivendell or the desolate landscapes of Mordor.” — Simon Tolkien, LitHub.com, 29 May 2025

The word desolate hasn’t strayed far from its Latin roots: its earliest meaning of “deserted” mirrors that of its Latin source dēsōlātus, which comes from the verb dēsōlāre, meaning “to leave all alone; forsake; empty of inhabitants.” That word’s root is sōlus, meaning “lone; acting without a partner; lonely; deserted,” source too of the “lonely” words sole, soliloquy, solitary, solitude, and solo. Desolate also functions as a verb (its last syllable rhymes with wait rather than what) with its most common meanings being “to lay waste” and “to make wretched; to make someone deeply dejected or distressed.”