noun
definition
The act of desolating or laying waste; destruction of inhabitants; depopulation.
definition
The state of being desolated or laid waste
synonyms
definition
A place or country wasted and forsaken.
Examples of desolation in a Sentence
Desolation absorbed her into her thoughts, until Jade spoke again.
Desolation, unlike anything she'd ever felt, made her want to sink into the ground and stay there.
Words are powerless to describe the desolation of that prison-house, or the joy of the soul that is delivered out of its captivity.
If every man should fight for the best form of government the state would come to desolation.
Along the shores of the bay, and in the valleys of the mountains to the north and west it was inhabited; htit a great belt of desolation separated it from the regions in which the Moslem were fighting out their own quarrels.
But the desolation of Edom has already been accomplished in the time of Malachi i.
Unfortunately several of these fertile tracts suffer severely from malaria (q.v.), and especially the great plain adjoining the Gulf of Tarentum, which in the early ages of history was surrounded by a girdle of Greek cities—some of which attained to almost unexampled prosperity—has for centuries past been given up to almost complete desolation.
It was plundered, although Totila did not carry out his threat to make it a pasture for cattle, and when the Gothic army withdrew into Apulia it was from a scene of desolation.
West of the Narenta, their flanks are in places covered with forests of beech and pine, but north-east of that river they present for the most part a scene of barren desolation.
Yahweh's judgments are multiplied against the land, and the issue can be nothing else than its total desolation.
Over to the north the scene is one of desolation, a world empty of anything except undulating moorland.
In the 5th century the desolation of Olympia had set in.
This is particularly the case in East Africa, where the systematic slave raids organized by them and carried out with the assistance of various warlike tribes reduced vast regions to a state of desolation.
When the tourists move on their corrupting influence leaves desolation and death - but the ants live on.
The monument is surfaced in an irregular mosaic of white and near-white tiles that evoke the desolation and grandeur of the Antarctic ice.
Take the empty desolation of One Day, All This Will Be Fields.
Past life regression is not for the merely curious but for those seekers who have suffered the pains of spiritual desolation and visited despair.
To do so " would have permanently undermined his position of power over her... such desolation could not be admitted " (194 ).
The lower reaches of the Zhob and Kundar are hemmed in by rugged limestone walls, serrated and banded with deep clefts and gorges, a wilderness of stony desolation.
In their original form, these texts described the desolation of the Earth due to the collapse of Heaven at the beginning of time.
The "abomination of desolation" has naturally had its influence upon it; possibly also the experience of the time of Caligula (see above).
The chill, autumn wind blows a few, shriveled leaves around the desolation.
Kirk is arrested for "talking to spirits", and Spock falls in love with a woman and is reluctant to find a way to escape from the cold desolation.
From its source to Obeh the Hari Rud is a valley of sandy desolation.
Belonging to the Fuegian group south of the Straits of Magellan are Desolation, Santa Ines, Clarence, Dawson, Londonderry, Hoste, Navarin and Wollaston islands, with innumerable smaller islands and rocks fringing their shores and filling the channels between them.
Thy fairest hopes undone bring desolation, or else, fulfilled, shall vanish in a day.
It is a scene of utter desolation, not a human being or animal to be seen.
Owing to the havoc wrought during repeated insurrections, the impoverishment of the peasants, the desolation of the districts formerly inhabited by the Moslem agricultural population, and the drain of gold resulting from the sale of Moslem lands and emigration of the former proprietors, together with other causes, the financial situation has been unsatisfactory.
Rutilius even exaggerates the desolation of the once important city of Cosa in Etruria,.
Burke uses, in reference to Hyder Ali, the same image which Demosthenes uses in reference to Philip. "Compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivity of the mountains.
Desolation unlike anything she.d ever felt made her want to sink into the ground and stay there.
Syracuse rose again out of her desolation - grass, it is said, grew in her streets - and, with an influx of a multitude of new colonists from Greece and from towns of Sicily and Italy, once more became a prosperous city.
His rule, which lasted till 1770, brought great prosperity to the Dun; but on his death it became a prey to the surrounding tribes, its desolation being completed after its conquest by the Gurkhas in 1803.
The clay resulting from the weathering of the Dartmoor granite has formed marshes and peat bogs, and the desolation of the district has been emphasized by the establishment in its midst of a great convict prison, and in its northern portion of a range for artillery practice.
After the other, it was the bitterest possible experience that could befall him, nor, in the state of mental desolation into which it plunged him, could he find any comfort from being soon again set free.
Desolation Land was supposed by Cook to form a continuous mass stretching from the western entrance of Magellan Strait to Cockburn Channel, but it actually consists of several islands, separated from each other by very narrow channels flowing between the Pacific and the western branch of Magellan Strait.
The name Desolation is given to the northern member of the group terminating at Cape Pillar; the southernmost and largest island nearer to Clarence Island, is Santa Ines.
In 1898-99, during the Filipino revolt, Malolos was the seat of the rebel government, but it was captured and reduced to desolation in March 1899.
The western group of islands, demarcated by Brecknock Peninsula, includes Clarence Island and Captain Cook's Desolation Land, with Dawson Island and numerous rocks and islets.
Returning to the Zambezi in the beginning of 1863, he found that the desolation caused by the slave trade was more horrible and widespread than ever.
The people were for the most part prosperous and contented, but under Verres the island experienced more misery and desolation than during the time of the first Punic or the recent servile wars.
Nehemiah, the cup-bearer of Artaxerxes at Susa, plunged in grief at the news of the desolation of Jerusalem, obtained permission from the king to rebuild the ruins.
In its picturesque desolation, contrasting so strongly with its prosperity in Roman times, immediately surrounding a city of over half a million inhabitants, and with lofty mountains in view from all parts of it, it is one of the most interesting districts in the world, and has a peculiar and indefinable charm.
As seen from the rock of Ghulgulah, Bamian, with its ruined towers, its colossi, its innumerable grottos, and with the singular red colour of its barren soil, presents an impressive aspect of desolation and mystery.
After passing through some narrow gorges near Sisteron the bed of the river becomes wide, and spreads desolation around, the frequent overflows being kept within bounds by numerous dykes and enbankments.
This defeat crushed the power of Florence for many years, reduced the city to desolation, and apparently annihilated the Florentine Guelfs.
And that other side of life, of which she had never before thought and which had formerly seemed to her so far away and improbable, was now nearer and more akin and more comprehensible than this side of life, where everything was either emptiness and desolation or suffering and indignity.
This district affords striking contrasts of scenery, from the sheltered fields of Miranzai to the barren desolation of the salt mines.
Where irrigated from the Kurram river, especially round Bannu itself, this tract is well cultivated and forms a great contrast to the harsh desolation of the Kohat hills.
Low temperatures are prevalent throughout these western regions, whose bleak desolation is unrelieved by the existence of trees or vegetation of any size, and where the wind sweeps unchecked across vast expanses of arid plain.