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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Desolation \Des'o*la"tion\, noun [F. d['e]solation, L. desolatio.]
1. The act of desolating or laying waste; destruction of inhabitants; depopulation.
Unto the end of the war desolations are determined. --Dan. ix. 26.
2. The state of being desolated or laid waste; ruin; solitariness; destitution; gloominess.
You would have sold your king to slaughter, . . . And his whole kingdom into desolation. --Shak.
3. A place or country wasted and forsaken.
How is Babylon become a desolation! --Jer. l. 23.
Syn: Waste; ruin; destruction; havoc; devastation; ravage; sadness; destitution; melancholy; gloom; gloominess.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
desolation
noun
1: the state of being decayed or destroyed [syn: {devastation}]
2: a bleak and desolate atmosphere [syn: {bleakness}]
3: sadness resulting from being forsaken or abandoned [syn: {forlornness}, {loneliness}]
4: an event that results in total destruction [syn: {devastation}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
114 Moby Thesaurus words for "desolation": 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
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