What is desolation?

What Does desolation Mean

With etymological origin in the Latin word desolatio , desolation is the act and result of desolate or desolate . This verb (desolate), meanwhile, refers to destroying or causing sadness or anguish .

Desolation can be said to appear with something shattered or ruined . Let us suppose that, in a certain territory, a bloody civil war takes place . The bombings caused the collapse of many buildings and left public spaces in ruins . Faced with this panorama, many people lament the desolation of the region in question.
Take the case of a government that does not invest in the maintenance of a park . The monuments of the place look deteriorated, with graffiti and paint damage. Vegetation, on the other hand, was lost with the passage of time. It is also common for criminals to gather there. For all these issues, the park is desolate.

Sometimes desolation is associated with a lack of life . When the presence of human beings is not noticed and the environment is very arid, without plants, it is common to mention the desolation of the site.
Now imagine a little traveled road through a desert . It is common for motorists to travel hundreds of kilometers without crossing other drivers, as it is a rarely used road. Also, the landscape is not attractive: there are no crops or flowers. Those who have to move on this road, often refer to the desolation of the road , which even generates anguish or anxiety.
It is important to note that this term is not used very often in everyday speech. However, it also does not belong to that group of words that only appear in the field of literature: it is a special case, which sometimes brings an extra emphasis on popular language, and therefore has its place reserved in informal conversations .
This is not exclusive to very technical or specific words, as it is also recorded with phrases of a very exaggerated tone, such as "I'm starving!" to express that we are very hungry and that we cannot wait for the food to arrive, for example.
If we arrive at a sea beach where there seems to be no life, we can say many different things to express our amazement. Without adding any overtones of humor or personal opinion, just say "There doesn't seem to be anyone else . " However, if we want to emphasize our surprise and elicit a response in others, such as laughter, there are always these words or phrases that apparently would not be used in these contexts; for example: "Oh my gosh, what a desolation!" .

Here are some of the most common synonyms for the word desolation : anguish, grief, pain, sadness, regret, and helplessness . In this case, two antonyms that we can mention are joy and happiness . On the other hand, in the first paragraphs examples are exposed that correspond more with the following synonyms: ruin, devastation and desolation .
We can notice that the second list of synonyms seems to express certain aspects of a site that are more objective than subjective, although they are not at one extreme either. If we feel devastated because we have suffered a very deep damage , impossible to put into words or to overcome, such as the death of a loved one, it goes without saying that objectivity has no place in this very personal situation. On the other hand, appealing to the word desolation to describe a road that appears to have been abandoned is closer to an objective observation, since the absence of people and the lack of maintenance can be undeniable in the eyes of any person.
Finally, “Desolación” is a work by the Chilean writer Gabriela Mistral . This book was first published in 1922 .