The Collaborative International Dictionary
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.
Wiktionary
n. (taxlink Pseudomys desertor species noshow=1), a murid found only in Australia.
Wikipedia
The desert mouse (Pseudomys desertor), also known as the brown desert mouse, is a species of rodent in the family Muridae. It is endemic to Australia. The first desert mouse specimen was collected by Australian zoologist Gerard Krefft on the Blandowski Expedition in 1856-57, between Gol Gol Creek and the Darling River.
Usage examples of "desert mouse".
As the ivory blue Second Moon rose into the sky, Liet looked at the shadow on its bright face that resembled a desert mouse.
Blinded, the bird missed with another swipe of its claw -- and the desert mouse escaped into a tiny crack in the rocks.
Here, a sunblasted desert mouse, quick, nimble, ageless, all cinnamon and nutmeg and honey as we stood in the night wind out in front of her mosque by her Mediterranean pool.
She knew she was only a drab, skinny girl wearing boy's clothes, a scraggly desert mouse in a nest of elegant tropical birds.