wasteland
English
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English wast lond, modification of earlier weste lond, from Old English weste land (“wasteland”); equivalent to waste + land.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈweɪs(t)ˌland/, /ˈweɪs(t)ˌlənd/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈweɪs(t)ˌlænd/, /ˈweɪs(t)ˌlənd/
- (New Zealand) IPA(key): /ˈwæes(t)ˌlɛnd/, /ˈwæes(t)ˌlɘnd/
Noun
wasteland (plural wastelands)
- A place with no remaining resources; a desert.
- Ten years of drought had left the area a wasteland.
- 2007, Kai Hansen, "To Mother Earth", Gamma Ray, Land of the Free II.
- Here create another wasteland / On and on 'til nothing's there / Here it comes, the devastation / Poisoning the air
- Any barren or uninteresting place.
- After his experiences, he no longer found western Kansas such a wasteland.
- 1961 May 9, Newton N. Minow, "Television and the Public Interest":
- Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.
- A devastated, not (or no longer) habitable area.
- 2014, Randall Munroe, quoting Anonymous, “Weird (and Worrying) Questions from the What If? Inbox, #7”, in What If?, New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 157:
- How many nuclear missiles would have to be launched at the United States to turn it into a complete wasteland?
- 2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 43:
- Yet had the whole train and all its bombs gone, had the engine crew merely jumped from the train and run as simple self-preservation would have suggested, or unhitched just the engine to make their escape faster, the whole town would have gone and most of the people with it, leaving just a smoking wasteland. Hundreds would have died.
-
Translations
region with no remaining resources; desert
|
barren and uninteresting place
|
devastated area
|