desolation
n. uncountablen. a feeling of great sadness and loneliness, or a place that is empty and ruined. You use this to describe a scene where everything looks destroyed or a person who feels completely hopeless.
n. a state of complete emptiness, loneliness, or destruction. Refers both to the physical state of a landscape and the psychological state of a person experiencing extreme grief or abandonment.
The abandoned city was a scene of total desolation.
After the factory closed, a sense of desolation hung over the town as shops boarded up their windows.
The poet uses the image of a salt marsh to evoke a feeling of inner desolation, mirroring the character's profound sense of loss after the war.
Inherited from Middle English desolacioun, from Middle French, Old French desolacion f, from Latin dēsōlātiō f.
Uncountable in its abstract sense; occasionally used with an indefinite article to describe a specific instance of misery.