Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of desolate.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • And -- and they -- they are subject to the same kind of desolating feelings that other people have.

    CNN Transcript Nov 17, 2005 2005

  • The inefficiency and lack of foresight in dealing with Italy's well-known earthquake risk was "desolating", Barberi said.

    unknown title 2009

  • One sudden and desolating change had taken place; but

    Chapter 7 2010

  • "Being romantically isolated with no prospects is desolating for people," says Eli Finkel, a psychology professor at Northwestern University who studies intimate relationships.

    The Art of Attraction: James Norton wants to take guys on an epic journey of personal growth and picking up chicks Ellen McCarthy 2011

  • One sudden and desolating change had taken place; but a thousand little circumstances might have by degrees worked other alterations, which, although they were done more tranquilly, might not be the less decisive.

    Chapter 6 2010

  • I therefore advised that the Valley campaign be terminated north of Staunton, and I be permitted to return, carrying out on the way my original instructions for desolating the Shenandoah country so as to make it untenable for permanent occupation by the Confederates.

    She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories 2010

  • The prescribed area included the little village of Dayton, but when a few houses in the immediate neighborhood of the scene of the murder had been burned, Custer was directed to cease his desolating work, but to fetch away all the able-bodied males as prisoners.

    She Makes Her Mouth Small & Round & Other Stories 2010

  • Often desolating entire watersheds, these rust colored streams are the consequence of a proud past filled with hard work and dedication in an era that paid little attention to environmental consequences.

    Treating Acid Mine Drainage in Vintondale 2008

  • The desolating sacrilege, the "abomination of desolations," an unambiguous reference to Antiochus' rededication of the temple to Zeus Olympus Ba'al Shomem and sacrifice of a pig on the altar.

    Intelligently-Designed Narratives: Mythicism as History-Stopper James F. McGrath 2010

  • It filled me with indescribable terror to think how swiftly that desolating change had come.

    The War of The Worlds H. G. Wells 2009

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