Desolate

How to spell desolate

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce desolate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does desolate mean?

1. adjectiveEmpty and bleak; deserted, joyless, or devoid of comfort.

Desolate in a sentence

• The abandoned mining town felt utterly desolate in the winter rain.

• She stared across the desolate moorland, where nothing moved for miles.

Where does desolate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb desolare, which meant 'to abandon' or 'to leave all alone'. It was built from the intensifying prefix de- (here meaning 'thoroughly' or 'completely') and solus, the Latin word for 'alone' that also gives us 'sole', 'solo' and 'solitary'. The past participle desolatus literally described a place or person left utterly alone, and that is the image still carried by the modern English word: an empty, abandoned landscape or a person stripped of all comfort. English took it up in the late 1300s, with both the 'bleak and deserted' adjective and the 'to ruin or lay waste' verb developing alongside each other. Remembering that buried sol, the same 'alone' root as in 'solo', helps fix the single s in the middle and the unstressed schwa that the spelling hides.

How the word is built

• de- (completely)
• sol (from Latin solus: alone)
• -ate (adjective/verb suffix)