DESERT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Desert

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/dˈɛzərt/ /dɪzˈərt/ Listen

noun

Desert n. That which is deserved; the reward or the punishment justly due; claim to recompense, usually in a good sense; right to reward; merit. "According to their deserts will I judge them." "Andronicus, surnamed Pius For many good and great deserts to Rome." "His reputation falls far below his desert."

Synonyms: Merit; worth; excellence; due.

Desert n.

A deserted or forsaken region; a barren tract incapable of supporting population, as the vast sand plains of Asia and Africa which are destitute of moisture and vegetation. "A dreary desert and a gloomy waste."

A tract, which may be capable of sustaining a population, but has been left unoccupied and uncultivated; a wilderness; a solitary place. "He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord." Note: Also figuratively. "Before her extended Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life."

verb

Desert v. t. (past & past part. deserted; pres. part. deserting)

To leave (especially something which one should stay by and support); to leave in the lurch; to abandon; to forsake; implying blame, except sometimes when used of localities; as, to desert a friend, a principle, a cause, one's country. "The deserted fortress."

(Mil.) To abandon (the service) without leave; to forsake in violation of duty; to abscond from; as, to desert the army; to desert one's colors.

Desert v. i. To abandon a service without leave; to quit military service without permission, before the expiration of one's term; to abscond. "The soldiers... deserted in numbers."

Synonyms: To abandon; forsake; leave; relinquish; renounce; quit; depart from; abdicate. See Abandon.

adjective

Desert adj. Of or pertaining to a desert; forsaken; without life or cultivation; unproductive; waste; barren; wild; desolate; solitary; as, they landed on a desert island. "He... went aside privately into a desert place." "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

Desert flora (Bot.), the assemblage of plants growing naturally in a desert, or in a dry and apparently unproductive place.

Desert hare (Zool.), a small hare (Lepus sylvaticus, var. Arizonae) inhabiting the deserts of the Western United States.

Desert mouse (Zool.), an American mouse (Hesperomys eremicus), living in the Western deserts.

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Etymology of 'Desert'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Desert" Quotes from Famous Books

... true their situation was not so bad as if each had been left alone by himself. Many a poor castaway upon a desert island has been condemned to a far more unhappy fate. They knew and acknowledged this. Each had the other two for companions; but as they reflected thus, they could not hinder their thoughts from casting forward into ...

— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... now joined in making common cause against the Scots, so that Gebhardt strongly advised that these should be withdrawn to Nanci for the present, the which advice George Douglas hotly resented. He had as good a claim to watch the castle as the Duke. He was not going to desert his King's sisters, far less the lady he had followed from Scotland. If any one was to be ordered off, it should be the fat lazy Alsatians, who were good for nothing but to ride big Flemish horses, and were ...

— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... A stooping figure in a shabby, black frock-coat, the figure of a man who wore a dilapidated bowler pressed down upon his ears, who had a greasy, Semitic countenance, with a scrubby, curling, sandy colored beard, sparse as the vegetation of a desert, appeared at ...

— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... cage was an African lioness, a beautiful and powerful beast, docile as a cat. Housed under other arches were two surly hyenas, goats from the White Nile, and an antelope of Kordofan. In a stable opening upon the garden were a pair of beautiful desert gazelles, and near to them, two cranes and a marabout. The leopards, whose howling now disturbed the night, were in a large, cell-like cage immediately below the spot where of old the chapel ...

— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... quiet opportunity to assure me that, whatever may be the final order of the Supreme Government, they will do their best for the good of the people and the state; for I have always considered Jhansi among the native states of Bundelkhand as a kind of oasis in the desert, the only one in which a man can accumulate property with the confidence of being permitted by its rulers freely to display and enjoy it. I had also to receive the visit of messengers from the Raja of Datiya, at whose capital we were ...

— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

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