Lay_waste vs Desolate - What's the difference?
lay_waste | desolate | Related terms |
To completely destroy, especially of a geographical area or region.
* 1990 , (Peter Hopkirk), The Great Game , Folio Society 2010, p. 16:
Deserted and devoid of inhabitants.
* Bible, Jer. ix. 11
* Tennyson
Barren and lifeless.
Made unfit for habitation or use; laid waste; neglected; destroyed.
Dismal or dreary.
Sad, forlorn and hopeless.
* Keble
To deprive of inhabitants.
To devastate or lay waste somewhere.
To abandon or forsake something.
To make someone sad, forlorn and hopeless.
As verbs the difference between lay_waste and desolate
is that lay_waste is to completely destroy, especially of a geographical area or region while desolate is to deprive of inhabitants.As an adjective desolate is
deserted and devoid of inhabitants.lay_waste
English
Verb
- Thirsting for revenge, his troops stormed the fortress of Kazan on the upper Volga in 1553, slaughtering the defenders just as the Mongols had done when they laid waste Russia's great cities.
Usage notes
Sometimes takes "to" instead of being simply transitive. Thus, "...they laid waste to Russia's great cities" would be an acceptable alternative to the quote above.desolate
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- a desolate''' isle; a '''desolate''' wilderness; a '''desolate house
- I will make Jerusalem a den of dragons, and I will make the cities of Judah desolate , without an inhabitant.
- And the silvery marish flowers that throng / The desolate creeks and pools among.
- desolate altars
- He was left desolate by the early death of his wife.
- voice of the poor and desolate