desert

desert
    n 1: arid land 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}, {desert}]
    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},
       {desert}]
    3: leave behind; "the students deserted the campus after the end
       of exam period"
    

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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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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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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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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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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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_).
    

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