desolates

Verb

desolate (third-person singular simple present desolates, present participle desolating, simple past and past participle desolated)

1. To deprive of inhabitants.
   • If you consider well of the People of the West-Indies, it is very probable, that they are a newer or younger People, than the People of the old World. And it is much more likely, that the destruction that hath heretofore been there, was not by Earthquakes, […] but rather, it was Desolated by a...1625, Francis Bacon, “Of Vicissitude of Things”, in Essays, London: H. Herringman et al., published 1691, page 204

   Synonyms:

   depeople, depopulate, dispeople, unpeople, unpopulate

2. To devastate or lay waste somewhere.
   • Then Moath pointed where a cloud
     Of Locusts, from the desolated fields
     Of Syria, wing’d their way.1801, Robert Southey, “The Third Book”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volume I, London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees, […], by Biggs and Cottle, […], →OCLC, page 168

   Synonyms:

   devastate, ravage, destroy, annihilate, aerosolize, atomize, benothing, bewreck, blot out, blotto

3. To abandon or forsake something.
   • It is not to be supposed that when Cush left Armenia, he left it desolate, and that a rich and long settled country was abandoned altogether; for it would be an absurd way of founding an universal empire, to desolate one country in order to people another.1828, Algernon Herbert, Nimrod: A Discourse on Certain Passages of History and Fable

   Synonyms:

   give up, relinquish, vacate, withsake

4. To make someone sad, forlorn and hopeless.
   • It is not altogether uncommon to hear a reader whose heart has been desolated by the poignancy of a narrative complain that the writer is unemotional.1914, Arnold Bennett, The Author’s Craft, London: Hodder & Stoughton, Part II, p. 44

   Synonyms:

   deject, get down, aggrieve, attrist, begloom, begrieve, besorrow, grieve, pain, bring down

See all 9 meanings of desolate