desolation
- 01 C1 Advanced
a feeling of being completely alone and very unhappy.
a state of complete loneliness, grief, or misery.
Simple“A sense of desolation came over him when he realized he was all alone.”
In context“The widow was overwhelmed by a profound sense of desolation in the weeks following the funeral, finding the silence of the house unbearable.”
UsageOften follows the construction 'a sense of' or 'a feeling of'.
Synonyms - 02 C1 Advanced
a place that is empty, ruined, and has no people living in it.
the state of being decayed or destroyed; a wasteland or deserted area.
Simple“The war left the once-beautiful city in a state of total desolation.”
In context“The explorers were struck by the utter desolation of the salt flats, where no plant or animal life could be seen for miles.”
UsageCan be used as both a countable and uncountable noun.
Antonyms
“The men whom Cartland stepped out with were not the heart-throb dukes and dashing airmen that she would later write about, but broken people without the language to express their desolation.”
“It's the perfect English summer's day, recognizable to any reader—at odds with the father's desolation at the loss of his little child.”
Inherited from Middle English desolacioun, from Middle French, Old French desolacion f, from Latin dēsōlātiō f.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.