Desert

8 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Desert \De*sert"\ (d[-e]*z[~e]rt"), n. [OF. deserte, desserte,
     merit, recompense, fr. deservir, desservir, to merit. See
     {Deserve}.]
     That which is deserved; the reward or the punishment justly
     due; claim to recompense, usually in a good sense; right to
     reward; merit.


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           According to their deserts will I judge them. --Ezek.
                                                    vii. 27.
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           Andronicus, surnamed Pius
           For many good and great deserts to Rome. --Shak.
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           His reputation falls far below his desert. --A.
                                                    Hamilton.
  
     Syn: Merit; worth; excellence; due.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Desert \Des"ert\ (d[e^]z"[~e]rt), n. [F. d['e]sert, L. desertum,
     from desertus solitary, desert, pp. of deserere to desert;
     de- + serere to join together. See {Series}.]
     1. 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.
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              A dreary desert and a gloomy waste.   --Pope.
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     2. A tract, which may be capable of sustaining a population,
        but has been left unoccupied and uncultivated; a
        wilderness; a solitary place.
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              He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her
              desert like the garden of the Lord.   --Is. li. 3.
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     Note: Also figuratively.
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                 Before her extended
                 Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life.
                                                    --Longfellow.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Desert \De*sert"\ (d[-e]*z[~e]rt"), v. t. [imp. & p. p.
     {Deserted}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Deserting}.] [Cf. L. desertus,
     p. p. of deserere to desert, F. d['e]serter. See 2d
     {Desert}.]
     1. 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." --Prescott.
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     2. (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.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Desert \De*sert"\, v. i.
     To abandon a service without leave; to quit military service
     without permission, before the expiration of one's term; to
     abscond.
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           The soldiers . . . deserted in numbers.  --Bancroft.
  
     Syn: To abandon; forsake; leave; relinquish; renounce; quit;
          depart from; abdicate. See {Abandon}.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Desert \Des"ert\, a. [Cf. L. desertus, p. p. of deserere, and F.
     d['e]sert. See 2d {Desert}.]
     Of or pertaining to a desert; forsaken; without life or
     cultivation; unproductive; waste; barren; wild; desolate;
     solitary; as, they landed on a desert island.
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           He . . . went aside privately into a desert place.
                                                    --Luke ix. 10.
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           Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
           And waste its sweetness on the desert air. --Gray.
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     {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.
        Arizon[ae]) 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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From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  desert
       adj : located in a dismal or remote area; desolate; "a desert
             island"; "a godforsaken wilderness crossroads"; "a wild
             stretch of land"; "waste places" [syn: {godforsaken}, {waste},
              {wild}]
       n : an arid region with little or no vegetation
       v 1: leave someone who needs or counts on you; leave in the
            lurch; "The mother deserted her children" [syn: {abandon},
             {forsake}, {desolate}]
       2: desert (a cause, a country or an army), often in order to
          join the opposing cause, country, or army; "If soldiers
          deserted Hitler's army, they were shot" [syn: {defect}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  292 Moby Thesaurus words for "desert":
     Arabia Deserta, Death Valley, Lebensraum, Sahara, Saharan, abandon,
     abscond, absquatulate, acarpous, advantageousness, agreeableness,
     air space, alkali flat, alluvial plain, anhydrous, apostacize,
     apostatize, arid, athirst, auspiciousness, back country, bare,
     barren, barren land, barrens, basin, be unfaithful, beat a retreat,
     beneficialness, benevolence, benignity, betray, bolt, bone-dry,
     bottomland, break away, break faith, brush, bush, bushveld, campo,
     celibate, champaign, champaign country, change sides, chastening,
     chastisement, childless, chuck, class, clear out, clear space,
     clearance, clearing, coastal plain, cogency, comeuppance,
     compensation, cut and run, decamp, defect, degenerate, delta,
     depart, deserted, deserts, deserving, desolate, desolation,
     discipline, distant prospect, down, downs, drained, dried-up,
     droughty, dry, dry as dust, due, dust bowl, dusty, elope, empty,
     empty view, escape, excellence, exhausted, expedience, fail,
     fairness, fall away, fall off, fallow, favorableness, fell,
     fineness, first-rateness, flat, flat country, flatland, flats,
     flee, fly, forsake, fruitless, fugitate, gaunt, gelded, glade, go,
     go AWOL, go back on, go over, goodliness, goodness, grace,
     grass veld, grassland, healthiness, heath, helpfulness,
     high and dry, howling wilderness, impotent, ineffectual, infecund,
     infertile, issueless, jejune, jilt, juiceless, jump, jump bail,
     just deserts, justice, karroo, kindness, lande, leached, leave,
     let down, levant, level, like parchment, living space, llano,
     lonely, lowland, lowlands, lunar landscape, lunar mare,
     lunar waste, make off, mare, maroon, menopausal, merit, mesa,
     mesilla, moor, moorland, niceness, nonfertile, nonproducing,
     nonproductive, nonprolific, open country, open space, outback,
     pampa, pampas, pass the buck, payment, peneplain, plain, plains,
     plateau, playa, pleasantness, prairie, profitableness, pull out,
     punishment, quality, quit, quittance, rat, recompense, renegade,
     renege, renounce, reprisal, repudiate, requital, retribution,
     revenge, reward, rewardingness, right, rights, run, run away,
     run away from, run away with, run for it, run off, run out on,
     salt flat, salt marsh, salt pan, sandy, sapless, savanna, sebkha,
     secede, sell out, shift the blame, shift the responsibility,
     show the heels, sine prole, skedaddle, skillfulness, skip,
     skip out, slip the cable, soundness, steppe, sterile, strand,
     sucked dry, superiority, switch, switch over, table, tableland,
     take French leave, take flight, take to flight, take wing,
     teemless, tergiversate, terrain, territory, thirsting, thirsty,
     throw over, tree veld, tundra, turn, turn against, turn cloak,
     turn tail, turn traitor, uncultivated, undamped, unfertile,
     unfruitful, uninhabited, unpeopled, unplowed, unproductive,
     unprolific, unsown, untilled, unwatered, upland, usefulness,
     vacant, validity, value, vega, veld, virgin, virtue, virtuousness,
     waste, wasted, wasteland, waterless, weald, weary waste,
     what is due, what is merited, wholeness, wide-open spaces, wild,
     wilderness, wildness, wilds, without issue, wold, worth
  
  

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Desert
     (1.) Heb. midbar, "pasture-ground;" an open tract for pasturage;
     a common (Joel 2:22). The "backside of the desert" (Ex. 3:1) is
     the west of the desert, the region behind a man, as the east is
     the region in front. The same Hebrew word is rendered
     "wildernes," and is used of the country lying between Egypt and
     Palestine (Gen. 21:14, 21; Ex. 4:27; 19:2; Josh. 1:4), the
     wilderness of the wanderings. It was a grazing tract, where the
     flocks and herds of the Israelites found pasturage during the
     whole of their journey to the Promised Land.
     
       The same Hebrew word is used also to denote the wilderness of
     Arabia, which in winter and early spring supplies good pasturage
     to the flocks of the nomad tribes than roam over it (1 Kings
     9:18).
     
       The wilderness of Judah is the mountainous region along the
     western shore of the Dead Sea, where David fed his father's
     flocks (1 Sam. 17:28; 26:2). Thus in both of these instances the
     word denotes a country without settled inhabitants and without
     streams of water, but having good pasturage for cattle; a
     country of wandering tribes, as distinguished from that of a
     settled people (Isa. 35:1; 50:2; Jer. 4:11). Such, also, is the
     meaning of the word "wilderness" in Matt. 3:3; 15:33; Luke 15:4.
     
       (2.) The translation of the Hebrew _Aribah'_, "an arid tract"
     (Isa. 35:1, 6; 40:3; 41:19; 51:3, etc.). The name Arabah is
     specially applied to the deep valley of the Jordan (the Ghor of
     the Arabs), which extends from the lake of Tiberias to the
     Elanitic gulf. While _midbar_ denotes properly a pastoral
     region, _arabah_ denotes a wilderness. It is also translated
     "plains;" as "the plains of Jericho" (Josh. 5:10; 2 Kings 25:5),
     "the plains of Moab" (Num. 22:1; Deut. 34:1, 8), "the plains of
     the wilderness" (2 Sam. 17:16).
     
       (3.) In the Revised Version of Num. 21:20 the Hebrew word
     _jeshimon_ is properly rendered "desert," meaning the waste
     tracts on both shores of the Dead Sea. This word is also
     rendered "desert" in Ps. 78:40; 106:14; Isa. 43:19, 20. It
     denotes a greater extent of uncultivated country than the other
     words so rendered. It is especially applied to the desert of the
     peninsula of Arabia (Num. 21:20; 23:28), the most terrible of
     all the deserts with which the Israelites were acquainted. It is
     called "the desert" in Ex. 23:31; Deut. 11:24. (See {JESHIMON}.)
     
       (4.) A dry place; hence a desolation (Ps. 9:6), desolate (Lev.
     26:34); the rendering of the Hebrew word _horbah'_. It is
     rendered "desert" only in Ps. 102:6, Isa. 48:21, and Ezek. 13:4,
     where it means the wilderness of Sinai.
     
       (5.) This word is the symbol of the Jewish church when they
     had forsaken God (Isa. 40:3). Nations destitute of the knowledge
     of God are called a "wilderness" (32:15, _midbar_). It is a
     symbol of temptation, solitude, and persecution (Isa. 27:10,
     _midbar_; 33:9, _arabah_).