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desert
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
desert
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a coastal/desert/mountain etc environment
▪ The storm caused significant damage to the coastal environment.
a desert area
▪ The hot, dry wind blows in from the desert areas of North Africa.
a desert island (=a tropical island that is far away and where nobody lives)
▪ He was shipwrecked on a desert island.
desert country
▪ Not much grows in this desert country.
desert island
deserted/empty (=with no one on it)
▪ We took a boat to a deserted beach.
empty/deserted (=with no people)
▪ As he walked home, the street was deserted.
gets his just deserts (=is punished in the way he deserves)
▪ I hope that he’s caught and gets his just deserts.
roam the countryside/desert/forests etc
▪ Wild sheep roam the hills.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
cold
▪ Mysterious white beams stream down into the cold desert from saucer-shaped craft.
▪ Today Mars is a dry, cold, windy desert.
▪ Mechanical weathering is rapid in cold desert regions.
dry
▪ Plants cope with hot dry desert in many different ways.
▪ In dry polar deserts ahumic soils tend to remain ahumic indefinitely.
high
▪ Then a buttery glow leaking from horizon to horizon, flooding the mesas and outcrop rock of the high desert.
▪ Los Alamos was located in the high desert miles from Santa Fe and was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence.
▪ A Santa Fe resident for 10 years, Neikrug is happily ensconced in the high desert haven.
hot
▪ Laying and distributing the eggs in small batches is a special adaptation to these hot desert conditions.
▪ Then the hot desert wind died to a whisper and the reprieved showed their relief.
▪ Plants cope with hot dry desert in many different ways.
▪ And, soon, like water sprinkled on hot desert ground, my savings would vanish.
just
▪ Now the rich and the proud would get their just deserts.
▪ Even a low-cal concoction can make us feel that we're getting our just deserts.
open
▪ I had hoped for thirty on the paved road to bump up the average before the open desert at Adrar.
▪ Alone on the open desert, I have made up songs of wild, poignant rejoicing and transcendent melancholy.
▪ In open desert, I was on my own.
▪ This was open desert, and there was not a dune in sight and it was firm underfoot.
▪ The first problem occurred when they left the road and moved off into the open desert.
polar
▪ These are summarized in Tables 3.3 and 3.4. 3.3.1 Northern plant communities Polar desert and tundra.
▪ Many tundra species occur in polar desert and forest as well, but only in tundra do they dominate their communities.
▪ It takes one to the high, isolated polar desert at the height of the summer season.
▪ Similarly the term polar desert covers both the area and the vegetation characteristic of it.
▪ In dry polar deserts ahumic soils tend to remain ahumic indefinitely.
vast
▪ The expedition took place in the middle of a vast desert wilderness marked blank on the maps.
▪ In this vast Adrar desert, which borders Western Sahara, an inexorable drought governs nature and man.
■ NOUN
area
▪ Thus firewood is the most important source of energy in desert areas, where vegetation is sparse.
▪ The biggest boom is in the scenic desert areas, which are laced with washes.
▪ Unlike the United States, Britain had no large sparsely-populated desert areas in which to deploy strategic missiles.
▪ In the meantime the Devonian temperature increased and desert areas expanded.
▪ Landsat and Meteosat satellites regularly relay aerial, pictures of locust-infested desert areas.
floor
▪ Walker died instantly; his F-104 bursting into flames, the pieces falling away to the desert floor 25,000 feet below.
▪ Look at him down here on the desert floor running free as the breeze.
▪ He watched the altimeter unwind and felt his straps grip as the desert floor swung up to face him.
▪ So until it rains, the spadefoot sits immobile in its burrow, an unsuspected living presence beneath the parched desert floor.
▪ He was still counting off the height in hundreds as the Kittyhawk smashed through what would have been the desert floor.
island
▪ Carwyn seemed like a castaway on a desert island.
▪ One person can live on a desert island without leader-ship.
▪ But for the moment, it seems he isn't the luxury most women want to take on a desert island with them.
▪ The witch Sycorax, who died shortly before Prospero arrived, had enchanted the desert island.
▪ If you were abandoned on a desert island, you would have total personal sovereignty to do exactly what you want.
▪ His bookishness became useful when he began to study magic on the desert island.
▪ But he was no more comfortable on the radio programme than he would have been on the real desert island.
▪ The plan was to fly to the Cook islands, and spend at least three months alone on a desert island.
land
▪ The vast tracts of sterile desert land were broken only by irregular patches of short, dry grasses or rough scrubland.
▪ In a desert land, water decides life.
▪ He urged wealthy nations to plant tropical hardwoods in desert lands, thereby tripling the area under tropical timber within a century.
plant
▪ See thousands of flowering desert plants.
▪ All the adaptations of the specialist desert plants and animals follow from these requirements.
sun
▪ He wondered how this man survived the desert sun.
▪ Today, the Playa is a table-top of sand that cracks beneath the desert sun and floods after monsoon rains.
▪ We used to be in the same practice, Peter and I. Now he's doing his stuff under the desert sun.
▪ Both seem to glow under the desert sun.
▪ At one end green plastic sheeting and hessian cloth provided shade from the desert sun.
■ VERB
live
▪ Animals and plants living in the desert therefore face severe problems.
▪ One person can live on a desert island without leader-ship.
▪ Some know how to live in such deserts, and meet their terrible demands.
▪ Recollect the feature films of the living desert, the vanishing prairie, the rams butting heads and salmon swimming upstream?
▪ They know because they have always lived in deserts, and their parents and grandparents before them.
▪ Anything less promising as a design for living in the desert is hard to imagine.
▪ I thought he lived in the desert.
lose
▪ Curtis was a very large man whose tiny facial features seemed lost in a desert of moist, granular skin.
▪ A man is lost in the desert without food.
▪ If we had lost hope, the desert dawn would restore our faith.
roam
▪ One sensed the aloneness, and would she be roaming the desert if there were a husband to worry about?
▪ Pride is one thing: a wild beast which lives in caves and roams the desert.
turn
▪ She lost her and in her terrible grief she withheld her gifts from the earth, which turned into a frozen desert.
wander
▪ For six years you wander the desert from level to pale level.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
deserted wife/husband/child etc
▪ In practice, the treatment of widows and deserted wives varied considerably from region to region.
get/receive your (just) deserts
▪ Even a low-cal concoction can make us feel that we're getting our just deserts.
▪ From Llewelyn he would get his deserts, and be grateful for them.
▪ He was not a spiteful man, but he had enjoyed the sight of Spatz getting his deserts.
▪ Now the rich and the proud would get their just deserts.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a US Army deserter
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He was pointing off toward the desert.
▪ It was used in the Persian Gulf war to target smart bombs and guide tanks across the desert.
▪ So if you go for a walk in the desert in a few years time and a plane flies overhead, hide.
▪ The restaurant space also gives the sense of a genuine, if somewhat too comfortable, desert experience.
▪ The story happened in a sandy desert.
▪ These Sundays were the oases of human contact in the desert of my loneliness.
▪ Thirst is banished, and the desert becomes their home.
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
almost
▪ It was almost deserted - looters were shot on sight and anyone who could flee had fled.
▪ The hamlet was almost deserted, except for two old women and some small children.
▪ As yet the streets were almost deserted, and so he couldn't resist driving by the tenement before making for the school.
▪ The place was almost deserted at that hour.
▪ The road, running for much of the time parallel to the river Wharfe, was almost deserted.
▪ Out in the street, it was almost deserted.
▪ The streets of Karachi are almost deserted.
▪ Apart from clusters of soldiers, the streets were almost deserted.
■ NOUN
army
▪ Their leader, Thorez, had deserted from the army and been stripped of his citizenship in 1939.
child
▪ Could a man who deserted his wife and child for another woman get off free without scars?
husband
▪ On January 24, 1952, the wife deserted the husband.
▪ The wife had then deserted the husband and was temporarily wrongfully away from home; but she might at any time return.
island
▪ They will be replaced by lesser black-backed gulls, the only Shetland breeding gull which entirely deserts the islands in winter.
▪ Some voyages offer whale-watching or visits to deserted Maine islands.
▪ A lord of the court provisioned the boat, and so they survived until they landed on a deserted island.
place
▪ When the dustmen come by and the first market stalls are being erected in the early morning the place is still deserted.
soldier
▪ Many young soldiers desert or go Awol after mistreatment and bullying by their superiors or colleagues.
▪ In some cases, the soldiers panicked and deserted even at rumors that rebels were coming.
▪ Several thousand soldiers desert every year, and military prosecutors, knowing the conditions, are reluctant to punish them.
▪ A pardon need not imply that a soldier did not desert, or show cowardice, or disobey orders.
street
▪ As yet the streets were almost deserted, and so he couldn't resist driving by the tenement before making for the school.
▪ The streets were deserted, empty in the sunshine.
▪ The street was rainswept and deserted.
▪ The street was all but deserted.
▪ The streets and bars were deserted, and for once the incessant noise and bustle had abated.
▪ Most buildings are tumbledown and all but the main streets are eerily deserted.
▪ Apart from clusters of soldiers, the streets were almost deserted.
▪ The street itself was deserted, the narrow plots of grass between the buildings an indescribable confusion of shadowy thorns and weeds.
wife
▪ Could a man who deserted his wife and child for another woman get off free without scars?
▪ Husbands, after all, deserted their wives every day, and most of them did not want to be found.
■ VERB
find
▪ It was aggravating in the extreme to discover him there, just when she had hoped to find the launch deserted.
▪ He threw every ounce of his energy into the run, reaching the bright street to find it deserted by traffic.
seem
▪ The house seemed silent and deserted.
▪ Canal Street, empty, or not yet filled, seemed to have been deserted.
▪ She could see part of Dewer Street through the half-open gate and it seemed to be deserted.
▪ The house seemed deserted, except for the two maids who were tidying up the living room in silence as we passed.
▪ At first glance, the place seemed deserted.
turn
▪ Once the ground has lost its protective cover of vegetation it quickly turns to desert.
▪ The aftermath death, flood, famine Cleared tropical forest soon turns to desert.
▪ In west Texas the drought has brought fears that the land will turn to desert.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Goldilocks finds a house in the woods that seems to have been deserted by its owners.
▪ He obtained the grenades from a friend who had deserted from the army.
▪ His father had deserted the family when Graham was three years old.
▪ Mrs Hasan was deserted by her husband and had to support four children on her own.
▪ Paul feels that his father deserted him after the divorce.
▪ The three men had tried to desert, but were brought back to camp and shot.
▪ U.S. officials say 1000 enemy soldiers have deserted.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Hibs' contribution was substantial until their stamina deserted them.
▪ His own men deserted him, poisoned his food, and eventually shot him in the head.
▪ I deserted the play, as did the other actors on stage, and leapt into the audience.
▪ Several thousand soldiers desert every year, and military prosecutors, knowing the conditions, are reluctant to punish them.
▪ The present site was apparently first recorded about 1939 and Aldershaw was deserted in 1947.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Desert

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.

According to their deserts will I judge them.
--Ezek. vii. 27.

Andronicus, surnamed Pius For many good and great deserts to Rome.
--Shak.

His reputation falls far below his desert.
--A. Hamilton.

Syn: Merit; worth; excellence; due.

Desert

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.

    A dreary desert and a gloomy waste.
    --Pope.

  2. 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.
    --Is. li.

  3. Note: Also figuratively.

    Before her extended Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life.
    --Longfellow.

Desert

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.

He . . . went aside privately into a desert place.
--Luke ix. 10.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
--Gray.

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

Desert hare (Zo["o]l.), a small hare ( Lepus sylvaticus, var. Arizon[ae]) inhabiting the deserts of the Western United States.

Desert mouse (Zo["o]l.), an American mouse ( Hesperomys eremicus), living in the Western deserts.

Desert

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.

The soldiers . . . deserted in numbers.
--Bancroft.

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

Desert

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.

  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.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
desert

"to leave one's duty," late 14c., from Old French deserter (12c.) "leave," literally "undo or sever connection," from Late Latin desertare, frequentative of Latin deserere "to abandon, to leave, forsake, give up, leave in the lurch," from de- "undo" (see de-) + serere "join together, put in a row" (see series). Military sense is first recorded 1640s. Related: Deserted; deserting.

desert

"wasteland," early 13c., from Old French desert (12c.) "desert, wilderness, wasteland; destruction, ruin," from Late Latin desertum (source of Italian diserto, Old Provençal dezert, Spanish desierto), literally "thing abandoned" (used in Vulgate to translate "wilderness"), noun use of neuter past participle of Latin deserere "forsake" (see desert (v.)).\n

\nSense of "waterless, treeless region" was in Middle English and gradually became the main meaning. Commonly spelled desart in 18c., which is not etymological but at least avoids confusion with the other two senses of the word. Classical Latin indicated this idea with deserta, plural of desertus.

desert

"suitable reward or punishment" (now usually plural and with just), c.1300, from Old French deserte, noun use of past participle of deservir "be worthy to have," ultimately from Latin deservire "serve well" (see deserve).

Wiktionary
desert

Etymology 1 n. (senseid en deserved)(context usually in plural English) That which is deserved or merit; a just punishment or reward Etymology 2

  1. Abandoned, deserted, or uninhabited; usually of a place. n. A barren area of land or desolate terrain, especially one with little water or vegetation; a wasteland. Etymology 3

    v

  2. 1 To leave (anything that depends on one's presence to survive, exist, or succeed), especially when contrary to a promise or obligation; to abandon; to forsake. 2 To leave one's duty or post, especially to leave a military or naval unit without permission.

Related phrases:
WordNet
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]

desert

n. an arid region with little or no vegetation

desert

  1. v. 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]

Related phrases:
Gazetteer
Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Desert (band)

Desert were an electronic and house music duo from Liverpool, England. Members of the outfit are the producers Paul Kane and Paul Pringle. In 2001 they hit #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart with "Lettin' Ya Mind Go". They also reached number 74 in the UK Singles Chart. In 2002 their follow-up, "I See the Light," peaked at #34 in the Hot Dance Club Play listings.

Desert (particle physics)

In particle physics, the desert refers to a theorized gap in energy scales, between the TeV scale and the GUT scale, in which no new physics appears. According to this theory, above the scale of approximately 10 eV, below which all the Standard Model particles were discovered by 2013, there are no new particles to be discovered, until reaching the scale of approximately 10 eV. It can also be described as a gap in the lengths involved, with no new physics below 10 m (the currently probed length scale) and above 10 m (the GUT length scale).

The idea of the desert was motivated by the observation of approximate, order of magnitude, gauge coupling unification at the GUT scale. Adding additional new physics at an intermediate scale generically disrupts the gauge coupling unification. With the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model particle content, adjustment of parameters can make this unification exact. This unification is not unique, since alternative scenarios like the Katoptron model can also lead to exact unification after a similar energetic desert. If neutrino masses are due to a seesaw mechanism, the seesaw scale should lie within the desert.

The desert theory is attractive because, in such a scenario, measurements of TeV scale physics at the LHC and the near-future ILC will allow extrapolation all the way up to the GUT scale.

The alternative to the desert is one or more new physical theories, with new particles, fields or other phenomena unfolding with every few orders of magnitude increase in the energy scale.

Désert (song)

“Désert” is Émilie Simon's debut single, released in October 2002. The song was a huge success both critically and commercially in her homeland. In the United States, a single for the English version was released in late 2006.

Desert (disambiguation)

A desert is a geographic area that receives little precipitation.

Desert may also refer to:

  • Desert (particle physics), a theorized gap in energy scales, in which no new physics appears
  • Desert (philosophy), the condition of being deserving of something
  • Desertion, the abandonment of a duty or post without permission
  • Desert, County Tyrone, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
  • Desert, Texas, an unincorporated community in Collin County

In art and entertainment:

  • Desert (band), an English electronic and house music duo
  • "The Desert" (Avatar: The Last Airbender), an episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender
  • The Desert (Dragon Prince), a fictional Princedom (or country) in Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince and Dragon Star novel trilogies
  • Le désert, an ode-symphonie by Félicien David
  • Déserts, a musical composition by Edgard Varese
  • "Desert", a song by D'espairsRay from Mirror
Desert (philosophy)

Desert in philosophy is the condition of being deserving of something, whether good or bad.

Désert

Désert may refer to:

  • "Désert" (song), a 2002 song by Émilie Simon
  • Désert (novel), a 1980 novel by J. M. G. Le Clézio
Désert (novel)

Désert is a novel written by French Nobel laureate writer J. M. G. Le Clézio, considered to be one of his breakthrough novels. It won the Académie française's Grand Prix Paul Morand in 1980.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "desert".

Railway to Baliani, the post-boat to Assouan, and then two days on a camel in the Libyan desert, with an Ababdeh guide, and three baggage-camels to tie one down to their own exasperating pace.

Thence they passed through the desert country of the Ababdeh, and came in sight of a broad grey tract stretching across their path.

The raw rock mountains shadowed in the late sun and to the east the shimmering abscissa of the desert plains under a sky where raincurtains hung dark as soot all along the quadrant.

Bernard Shaw justified the Abyssinian conquest of Italy by saying that there was danger to human life while passing through the Dankal desert.

In a few days the English cannon had been placed in a circle round the fort, and set such strange music humming in the ears of the besieged that the Acadian farmers deserted and the priest nervously thought of flight.

It was a century plant-a desert agave that bloomed once every hundred years.

He laid the agave leaf beside him and stared out into the blinding desert.

Great numbers of the Alani, appeased by the punctual discharge of the engagements which Aurelian had contracted with them, relinquished their booty and captives, and quietly retreated to their own deserts, beyond the Phasis.

The Huns, with their flocks and herds, their wives and children, their dependents and allies, were transported to the west of the Volga, and they boldly advanced to invade the country of the Alani, a pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of the deserts of Scythia.

A chill, arid wind blew from the mountains of the Jabal Alawite across the lava rock and gravel desert of Badiyat Ash-sham.

UIA reports arrived month after month, endlessly piling confusion upon confusion as his three distant enemies across the sea laughed and joked and dealt the cards that spun out their game over the years in the eternal city, as Nubar brooded over hearsay and hints and shadowy allegations in his castle tower in Albania, safe and far away as he wanted to be, as indeed he had to be so great was his fear of the conflicting clues of the Old City that rose above time and the desert, at home in his castle tower safely handling charts and numbers to his satisfaction, safely arranging concepts.

Plateau of Chasms, loomed from the desert, a long ribbon of blue stone running three hundred miles from Algeria into the kingdom of Tripoli, skirting the edge of the Ahaggar Mountains and the lush oases that dotted the southern desert.

Four-fifths of Algeria was desert, there was no timber, and the only arable land was two hundred miles away along the sea.

Zarqa-Azraq road, traveling north from Amman, veering east into the desert.

No rumor was too extreme to find its way into the fanciful legends that foreign travelers heard repeated with awe in Amman, the desert capital of Jordan.