Desolation1. (n.) The act of desolating or laying waste; destruction of inhabitants; depopulation.
2. (n.) The state of being desolated or laid waste; ruin; solitariness; destitution; gloominess.
3. (n.) A place or country wasted and forsaken.
Thesaurus Entries
Arabia Deserta, Death Valley, Sahara, abandonment, aching heart, agonizingness, agony, agony of mind, anguish, bale, barren, barren land, barrenness, barrens, bitterness, bleeding heart, bloodbath, blue ruin, breakup, broken heart, brush, bush, carnage, chaos, comfortlessness, consumption, crushing, damnation, decimation, defenselessness, depopulation, depredation, depression, depth of misery, desert, desertion, desolateness, despair, despoilment, despoliation, destruction, devastation, disconsolateness, disconsolation, disintegration, disorganization, dispeoplement, disruption, dissolution, distress, dolor, dreariness, dust bowl, excruciatingness, excruciation, extirpation, extremity, fatherlessness, forlornness, gloom, grief, havoc, heartache, heartbreak, heartsickness, heath, heavy heart, hecatomb, helplessness, holocaust, homelessness, howling wilderness, inconsolability, infelicity, karroo, kithlessness, lunar landscape, lunar waste, melancholia, melancholy, misery, motherlessness, obliteration, prostration, ravage, ravagement, ruin, ruination, sack, sadness, salt flat, shambles, slaughter, sorrow, spoliation, suicidal despair, torment, tormentingness, torture, torturousness, undoing, unhappiness, vandalism, waste, wasteland, weary waste, wild, wilderness, wilds, woe, wrack, wrack and ruin, wreck, wretchedness