different between desolate vs plaintive

English

Etymology

From Middle English desolate, from Latin d?s?l?tus, past participle of d?s?l?re (“to leave alone, make lonely, lay waste, desolate”), from s?lus (“alone”).

Pronunciation

• (adjective) IPA^(key): /?d?s?l?t/
• (verb) IPA^(key): /?d?s?le?t/

Adjective

desolate (comparative more desolate, superlative most desolate)

1. Deserted and devoid of inhabitants.

   a desolate isle; a desolate wilderness; a desolate house
2. Barren and lifeless.
3. Made unfit for habitation or use because of neglect, destruction etc.

   desolate altars

4. Dismal or dreary.
5. Sad, forlorn and hopeless.

   He was left desolate by the early death of his wife.

   • voice of the poor and desolate

Translations

Verb

desolate (third-person singular simple present desolates, present participle desolating, simple past and past participle desolated)

1. To deprive of inhabitants.
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, “Of Vicissitude of Things” in Essays, London: H. Herringman et al., 1691, p. 204,^[1]

     If you consider well of the People of the West-Indies, it is very probable, that they are a newer or younger People, than the People of the old World. And it is much more likely, that the destruction that hath heretofore been there, was not by Earthquakes, […] but rather, it was Desolated by a particular Deluge: For Earthquakes are seldom in those Parts.

   • 1717, John Dryden (translator), Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Dublin: G. Risk et al., 1727, Volume I, Book I, p. 16,^[2]

     O Righteous Themis, if the Pow’rs above

     By Pray’rs are bent to pity, and to love;

     If humane Miseries can move their Mind;

     If yet they can forgive, and yet be kind;

     Tell how we may restore, by second birth,

     Mankind, and people desolated Earth.

   • 1891, Charles Creighton, A History of Epidemics in Britain, Cambridge University Press, Chapter 1, p. 23,^[3]

     York was so desolated just before the survey that it is not easy to estimate its ordinary population […]

2. To devastate or lay waste somewhere.
   • 1801, Robert Southey, Thalaba the Destroyer, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, 2nd edition, 1809, Volume I, Book 3, p. 118,^[4]

     Then Moath pointed where a cloud

     Of Locusts, from the desolated fields

     Of Syria, wing’d their way.

   • 1905, H. G. Wells, A Modern Utopia, Chapter 2, § 3,^[5]

     But in Utopia there will be wide stretches of cheerless or unhealthy or toilsome or dangerous land with never a household; there will be regions of mining and smelting, black with the smoke of furnaces and gashed and desolated by mines, with a sort of weird inhospitable grandeur of industrial desolation, and the men will come thither and work for a spell and return to civilisation again, washing and changing their attire in the swift gliding train.

3. To abandon or forsake something.
4. To make someone sad, forlorn and hopeless.
   • 1914, Arnold Bennett, The Author’s Craft, London: Hodder & Stoughton, Part II, p. 44,^[6]

     It is not altogether uncommon to hear a reader whose heart has been desolated by the poignancy of a narrative complain that the writer is unemotional.

   • 1948, Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country, New York: Scribner, Chapter 36, p. 271,^[7]

     Kumalo stood shocked at the frightening and desolating words.

Related terms

• desolation

Translations

Further reading

• desolate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• desolate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• desolate at OneLook Dictionary Search

German

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -a?t?

Adjective

desolate

1. inflection of desolat:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Italian

Adjective

desolate f pl

1. feminine plural of desolato

Latin

Participle

d?s?l?te

1. vocative masculine singular of d?s?l?tus

English

Etymology

From Middle English pleintif, plentyff, from French plaintif (“aggrieved, lamenting”), from plainte (“lament, complaint”); see plaint. Doublet of plaintiff.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ple?nt?v/

Adjective

plaintive (comparative more plaintive, superlative most plaintive)

1. Sounding sorrowful, mournful or melancholic.

Related terms

• plaint
• plaintiff

Translations

Further reading

• plaintive in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• plaintive in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Adjective

plaintive

1. feminine singular of plaintif