desolatest
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Senses: examples: text: If thou ſhouldeſt arriue among the Indians, and finde but ſome ſiſlie Cottage in the deſolateſt Countrey thereof; Thou wouldeſt by and by conclude, this Ile is inhabited, ſome man hath paſſed heere.
ref: 1587, Philip of Mornay, translated by Philip Sidney and Arthur Golding, A VVoorke Concerning the Trewnesse of the Christian Religion, Written in French: Against Atheists, Epicures, Paynims, Iewes, Mahumetists, and Other Infidels, London: […] [[John Charlewood and] George Robinson] for Thomas Cadman, pages 12–13:
text: Don Bellianis and Arfileo, hauing mounted the Charret, guided by the Dwatffes, with the Princeſſe and her Damſels, as before is recyted, not knowing whether they might be conducted, were ſo [?]wiftlye drawn by the Griffons that in very ſhort time they were within the kingdome of Perſia, not far from the great citie of Perſepolis, and on the deſolateſt mountaines of all that l[?]nd the Griffons deſcended, hard by the mouth of a darke and ebſcure Caue, from whence came forth an old woman aboue two hundreth yeares of age, who comming before the wearie and faint Princes, knéeled to them, deſiring that ſhee might [?] their hands.
ref: 1598, [Jerónimo Fernández], translated by L. A., The Honour of Chiualrie. Set Downe in the Most Famous Historie of the Magnanimious and Heroike Prince Don Bellianis: Sonne vnto the Emperour Don Bellaneo of Greece. Wherein Are Described, the Straunge and Dangerous Aduentures That Him Befell. With His Loue Towards the Princesse Florisbella: Daughter vnto the Souldan of Babylon., London: […] Thomas Creede, page 53:
text: She doth tell me where to borrow / Comfort in the mid’ſt of ſorrow; Makes the deſolateſt place / To her preſence be a grace; / And the blackeſt diſcontents / Be her faireſt ornaments.
ref: 1614, Geor[ge] Wither, “To His Truly Beloved Louing Friend Mʳ William Brovvne of the Inner Temple”, in William Browne, The Shepheards Pipe, London: […] N[icholas] O[kes] for George Norton:
text: Oh far be it from Chriſtians to thinke it, from religious to doe it: the blindeſt Sauadge in the deſolateſt Iſlands that ſerues his Zemes the deuill for God, is not ſo impious.
ref: 1616, Roger Gostvvyke, The Anatomie of Ananias: or, Gods censure Against Sacriledge. With a Breife Scholie vpon Psalm. 83. Concerning the Same Subiect., Cambridge: […] Cantrell Legge, page 138:
text: He lay all that day on a bed, vnwilling to ſpeake to any perſon; and the night being come, he depriued himſelfe of his companions: he tooke to the largeſt and deſolateſt wood, ſhunning the meeting of men, more like a ſauge beaſt, deſiring to die farre from the ſociety and companie of men, ſince they were the cauſe of his ſorrow.
ref: 1620, [Honoré d'Urfé], translated by Iohn Pyper, The History of Astrea. The First Part., London: […] N. Okes [and T. Creede] for Iohn Pyper, page 125:
text: But to ſpeak a little more familiarly unto you, ſuppoſe that you ſhould arrive amongſt the Indians, and there finde but ſome ſilly Cottage in the deſolateſt place thereof, would you not thereupon conclude with your ſelf, ſurely this Land is inhabited, ſome man hath been here?
ref: 1650, E[dward] F[isher], Faith in Five Fundamentall Principles, Strongly Fortified Against the Diabolical, Atheisticall, Blasphemous Batteries of These Times. Serving for the Conviction of Opposers, the Satisfaction of Doubters, and the Confirmation of Believers. In a Conference Which a Godly Independent Minister and a Godly Presbyterian Minister Had with a Doubting Christian., London: […] John Wright, page 9:
text: The other to deprived parents! both pregnantly expreſſing man’s deſtitute condition without Chriſt; Chriſts Fatherly affection towards man: Man, who left alone, is the deſolateſt creature in the world! eſpecially for Spirituals, how unable therein to help himſelfe, ſo much as to a good thought, Rom. 7. When thus the Apoſtles without Chriſt, are very Orphanes, as children, Fatherleſſe, expoſed to oppreſſions, injuries, and deluſions!
ref: 1652, Edward Sparke, Scintillula Altaris, or, A Pious Reflection on Primitive Devotion: As to the Feasts and Fasts of the Christian Church, Orthodoxally Revived, London: […] T. Maxey for Richard Marriot, page 156:
text: “Sleep on! sleep on!” oblivious of thy woes, oh! desolatest of the desolate, till the foot of the surly watchman shall kick thee into consciousness.
ref: 1838 August, “Off-Hand Sketches, No. II. Loafer.”, in The American Monthly Magazine, page 119:
text: There was the desolatest looking place that I ever saw.
ref: 1840 November 7, ““Our Anna.””, in The Boston Weekly Magazine. Devoted to Moral and Entertaining Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts: […], volume III, number 8, Boston, Mass.: […] David H. Ela and John B. Hall, published 1841, page 62:
text: Away!—home; to the Rhine, to the Nile; to Paris, or the desolatest peak in Switzerland: the wranglings forgotten; “bills” no longer all-important; the old familiar voices no longer flowing in the unbroken song of level eloquence, nor bubbling out in the stuttering, clipt, foaming and out-tumbling, together-crashing, stopt short, hesitating speech of your practised man, who has got so used to not being able to speak as to consider that “his style” of rhetoric!
ref: 1851 August 16, “Away!”, in The Spectator, number 1207, page 781:
text: For there the old man wears / The sweet symbol that appears / In the desolatest hour / That the winter-world doth know, / When a bud is seen to blow / In its lightness and its whiteness, / Its purity and brightness, / As if four flakes of snow / Were united in one flower.
ref: 1857, D[enis] Florence Mac Carthy, “January. A Fragment.”, in Underglimpses, and Other Poems, London: David Bogue, stana 4, pages 195–196:
text: “ ‘Whereabouts did you come acrost him?’ says Lucy. “ ‘On the turnpike; the most lonesomest, and the most desolatest part of it.[…]’
ref: 1858, Edith Woodley, “Aunt Tabitha’s Fireside. No. XVI.—The Robbery on the Turnpike.”, in Sarah J. Hale, L. A Godey, editors, Godey’s Lady’s Book, volume LVI, page 226:
text: That morning, when the master left it, there was, in spite of all the wealth of learning gathered round its walls—in spite of the heavenly sun which fell so golden on the floor—in spite of the living landscape seen beyond, set in an azure setting, and painted by a higher Master than mortal man—there was an air of visible desolation, the desolatest dearth earth has—that of the absence of woman’s thought and care!
ref: 1860, Eliza Meteyard, “Phema at Moore Farm”, in Mainstone’s Housekeeper, volume I, London: Hurst and Blackett, page 118:
text: Sure enough it was a dark day; and after the funeral we was the desolatest little group ever you did see.
ref: 1864, Morning-Gleam: or, The Pastor’s Daughter, page 38:
text: […]ſo, to conſtrain myſelf, as ’twere, to a cheerfuller frame, I went forth to the Mercera, a ſpot where any but the deſolateſt mind might ſurely find amuſements.
ref: 1866, [Anne Manning], “What befel us in Foreign Parts”, in Passages in the Life of the Faire Gospeller, Mistress Anne Askew, New York, N.Y.: M. W. Dodd, page 88:
text: This sentence he received philosophically; intimating to the learned judge that should be (Gumbles) have the good fortune to become a ticket-of-leave, he would occupy himself as a missionary, ‘in converting the very savigest men he could meet with on the desolatest hislands there was to be found in the ocean.’
ref: 1872, Sydney Mostyn [pseudonym; William Clark Russell], chapter VII, in Perplexity, volume II, London: Henry S. King & Co., page 153:
text: Before it had come to an end there was a clusther of ruined cabins, with not a roof to every half-score of them; and in one of the desolatest there was a widda woman stretched dyin’ on a heap of straw, and praying her one misfortunate boy, and that was meself, to leave her to die alone, and to save himself from the bloodhounds, that was sure to scent him out before long.
ref: 1875, M. L. Kenny, chapter II, in The Fortunes of Maurice Cronin, volume III, London: Tinsley Brothers, page 46:
text: “Hat them there Barrens, which is the desolatest place I hever seen,” said Miss Priscilla;
ref: 1875, May Agnes Fleming, “Pet’s Peril”, in The Gypsy Queen’s Vow, New York, N.Y.: Hurst & Company, page 154:
text: But woman is queer. A romping girl strolled out of camp and brought in a clump of field daisies and set them by the spring, on one of our desolatest, wettest days!
ref: 1875 September 15, Thomas K. Beecher, “In the Woods”, in The Christian Union, volume XII, number 11, New York, N.Y.: Henry M. Cleveland; Horatio C. King, page 212:
text: The minister sot close up ter that, looking down inter the ashes; for there wasn’t much more ’en them to see, the desolatest man that I ever sot eyes on.
ref: 1881, Ann S. Stephens, “The American Countess”, in Peterson’s Magazine, volume seventy-ninth, chapter IX, page 230:
text: But, Eleazar, afterwards!—to pass / Through the blank spaces of a changeless night, / Meeting, it may be, only ghosts that point / To the deep wounds our murdering hands have given, / That glare with menacing looks, and mock and gibe / Our miserable doom, swept by fierce winds / Unto the bourne of desolatest night!
ref: 1891, [John Joseph Brown], “The Vision of Barabbas”, in The Vision of Barabbas and Other Poems, London: Henry Frowde, page 12:
text: Once, on coming home from an evening with an aunt at Walworth, Phœbe had seen the third-floor lodger sitting on one of the stone seats on Waterloo Bridge, “the most desolatest figure as ever was.”
ref: 1898, M[ary] E[lizabeth] Braddon, Rough Justice, pages 108–109:
glosses: superlative form of desolate: most desolate