deserted

1. 1
   adjective

   Empty of people, especially because everyone has left or abandoned the place.

   By midnight the town square was completely deserted.

   They wandered through the deserted factory, their footsteps echoing off the walls.

   Similarabandoned, uninhabited, empty, desolate, vacant

   Oppositeinhabited

   Note

   Places are what it describes: a square, a concourse, a landscape seen by moonlight. It grades freely (more deserted, most deserted) and pairs naturally with almost and completely, as in Paul Bigland's almost deserted concourse at Birmingham New Street in 2020. Forsaken leans toward feeling and derelict toward neglect. Deserted says only that the people have gone.

2. 2
   adjective

   Bleak and barren, giving a strong feeling of gloomy emptiness.

   The deserted, frozen tundra offered no shelter or comfort for miles.

   Her apartment felt deserted and dreary in the days after he left.

   Similardesolate, bleak, barren, empty, forlorn

   Oppositelively, bustling, crowded, cheerful

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of desert.

   Many residents deserted the city as the floodwaters kept rising.

   The building had been deserted by its last tenants years earlier.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty for the past tense and the participle: they deserted the city, the building had been deserted. The verb behind it is the one meaning to abandon, often against a promise or obligation, and it carries the military sense too. A soldier who leaves a unit without permission has deserted. Placed before a noun, as in a deserted street, it becomes the adjective for empty places.

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