What's the difference between desolate and devastate?

Desolate


Definition:

  • (a.) Destitute or deprived of inhabitants; deserted; uninhabited; hence, gloomy; as, a desolate isle; a desolate wilderness; a desolate house.
  • (a.) Laid waste; in a ruinous condition; neglected; destroyed; as, desolate altars.
  • (a.) Left alone; forsaken; lonely; comfortless.
  • (a.) Lost to shame; dissolute.
  • (a.) Destitute of; lacking in.
  • (v. t.) To make desolate; to leave alone; to deprive of inhabitants; as, the earth was nearly desolated by the flood.
  • (v. t.) To lay waste; to ruin; to ravage; as, a fire desolates a city.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Downtown LA is improving, but for years it was a desolate hell zone of freeways, office blocks and closed stores.
  • (2) The coast here feels like an island, desolate and full of surprises.
  • (3) The Eritrean government requires every pupil to complete their final year of high school by serving in Sawa Military Camp, in the desolate, semi-desert region of eastern Eritrea .
  • (4) But for the next few hours, though, there's little to excite us: Joseph Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) The economic data calendar is a desolate wasteland of nothingness.
  • (5) When it is not clogged with weekend traffic, Container – the English word is used in Arabic – is a desolate spot: a lonely stretch of asphalt, four dingy tollbooth-like structures painted white and green, a few bored Israeli soldiers with automatic rifles.
  • (6) They are kept in a small pen behind the Lion's Den, a pub on a ranch in desolate countryside 75 miles south of Johannesburg.
  • (7) It was after the Indian wars of the 1870s that the indigenous tribes started to be consigned to reservations – on the worst, most desolate lands for grazing or growing crops.
  • (8) And, Jinkyo-En which was a desolate waste has come to an oasis in life for the Hansenites.
  • (9) The first time I saw the building - a stark, unapologetically angular silver bunker throwing back the heat of a rather desolate part of Berlin - I was content to register its disturbance without question, submitting to its strategies of oppression and disorientation as a child would.
  • (10) "Given the complexity of this crisis and the extent of the distress of our people from the north … we must together, I say together, clear the path ahead to free our country from these invaders, who only leave desolation, deprivation and pain in their wake."
  • (11) And it's Christmas bonanza time along the high streets of Britain, where Oxfam outlets and estate agents lie lonely amid empty sites and desolate closed doors.
  • (12) Australian visual effects wizard Dave Clayton has been nominated for his work on The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
  • (13) But, like many streets in New York City and in cities across the US, it is becoming increasingly desolate.
  • (14) Season two crafted complex characters racked with existential ambivalence – heroines marked for the abyss, fragile, flammable outcasts and desolate prodigies, all of whose private pain was as palpable as the crimson bloodbath head witch Evelyn Poole soaks in.
  • (15) Instead, they suggest expanding the scope of services in family planning clinics, out of an awareness that the continuing high prevalence of unintended childbearing, among the young and disadvantaged in particular, is part of a larger problem of living in a desolate social environment.
  • (16) "I watched this guy brushing off dirt from a skull in the most desolate landscape and right then I just knew," Rincón said of his first encounter with palaeontology.
  • (17) There was nothing to see for miles but sage-covered high desert, a landscape of stark beauty and eerie desolation.
  • (18) The contemporary state of the sub-discipline of endocrinology within the framework of internal medicine is generally considered rather desolate, but so far actual data were lacking.
  • (19) Howell said in July: "There are large uninhabited and desolate areas, certainly up in the north-east where there's plenty of room for fracking well away from anyone's residence where it can be conducted without any kind of threat to the rural environment."
  • (20) A subroutine called DESOL for the numerical solution of ordinary differential equations of the type arising in biological simulation problems is described.

Devastate


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To lay waste; to ravage; to desolate.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It appears that irrespective of the elucidation of the nature of the putative aetiological factor (presumed to be viral) in MS, the arrest and reversal of T cell-related events within the CNS in this devastating condition represent feasible goals and should remain a major target for some time to come.
  • (2) Samaras said: A "Grexit", as it is called, would be devastating for Greece and detrimental to Europe.
  • (3) While winds gusting to 170mph caused significant damage, the devastation in areas such as Tacloban – where scenes are reminiscent of the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami – was principally the work of the 6-metre-high storm surge, which carried away even the concrete buildings in which many people sought shelter.
  • (4) The Financial Services Authority is meant to be the City's watchdog but "devastating" internal documents reveal it has secretly co-ordinated high-level lobbying strategies with the industry it is supposed to police.
  • (5) The government acknowledged it had been overwhelmed by the devastation from the deadliest quake in Nepal in over 80 years.
  • (6) Mark Rasch, a cyber crime expert quoted by the FT, meanwhile said recent events have been “a serious and devastating attack to [Sony’s] reputation and image”, and his opinion is played out by a new YouGov poll into the public perception of Sony’s brand.
  • (7) "When people don't feel they have a reason to stay out of trouble, the consequences for communities can be devastating – as we saw last August," said Darra Singh, chair of the panel.
  • (8) Newcastle United are “devastated” by their relegation from the Premier League, according to the club’s managing director Lee Charnley.
  • (9) In order to reduce the devasting effects of enteric diseases among children born to mothers in tropical countries of Africa and Asia, it is imperative that all health workers understand the cultural and social perceptions of their clients towards the disease in question.
  • (10) All the personality, dignity and humanity of a person are devastated by this torture.
  • (11) Age UK believes McDonald's human rights have been breached and that there could be "extremely adverse and devastating consequences for many thousands of older people if other councils take similar decisions to save money".
  • (12) And then, as the Guardian revealed at the weekend, there is the potentially devastating effect of the boundary changes, which can’t really be brought in before an early election but will radically tilt the field by 2020.
  • (13) He said: "[That] could be devastating for the renewables industry.
  • (14) To say that the loss of BB King is devastating to the blues community is an understatement.
  • (15) 'Devastated' Peter Greste calls on Egypt's president to pardon trio Read more “It’s ironic that the conviction was for tarnishing Egypt’s reputation when ... this [case] is what’s tarnished Egypt’s image,” Clooney told BBC News.
  • (16) The report, extracts of which were published by the investigative news website Exaro , is said to include “devastating detail” of the corporation’s “sheer scale of awareness” of the late star’s activities.
  • (17) Although anterior and posterior traumatic displacement of cervical vertebrae are commonly noted, and the devastating neurological deficits associated with these injuries have been amply defined, lateral displacement with fractures has been rarely recognized, and the clinical significance of this injury has been overlooked.
  • (18) Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Met commissioner, said a report revealing the undercover officers had spied on the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence was “devastating” for Scotland Yard and “one of the worst days that I have seen as a police officer”.
  • (19) The case for halting British arms sales to Saudi Arabia has been evident, not only on moral grounds, since civilians started dying in the conflict devastating Yemen.
  • (20) Devastating neurologic complications can be avoided or alleviated in a great proportion of patients undergoing radiation therapy for cerebral metastases and spinal cord compression.