desert island
A deserted island, an uninhabited island, especially one in the tropics and a small…A deserted island, an uninhabited island, especially one in the tropics and (now frequently misunderstood as) a small and almost entirely sandy desert.
» Tom is stranded on a desert island.
CK · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
3 sensesA deserted island, an uninhabited island, especially one in the tropics and (now frequently misunderstood as) a small and almost entirely sandy desert.
What would I take with me to a desert island?
unbewohnte Insel
необита́емый о́стровneobitájemyj óstrov
An island that is completely or mostly a desert, an arid island.
Why are you marooning me on a desert island? It's probably full of guano. Can't I go somewhere nice?
(attributive, figuratively)Describing a thing considered so personally indispensable or beloved that one could never tire of it, used especially for books and music.
No, no, no. It's a thought experiment. Your desert island books are the one or five or ten books that you could always learn from and never get sick of.
Examples
49 sentencesTom is stranded on a desert island.
Money is useless on a deserted island.
deAuf einer einsamen Insel hat Geld keinen Nutzen. — Waldelfe
Tom landed his helicopter on a deserted island.
Tom has been stranded on a desert island for three months.
Tom said he was stranded on a desert island for three years.
Translations
8 languagesBy meaning 1
By meaning 1
Origin
From the former sense of desert to mean deserted (“uninhabited”), particularly common on SFrom the former sense of desert to mean deserted (“uninhabited”), particularly common on Spanish and Portuguese maps during the Age of Exploration as isla desierta, ilha deserta, and Medieval Latin isla deserta (“uninhabited island”). Now frequently misunderstood as simply desert (“dry, arid location”) and imagined as almost entirely sandy.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: desert islands| Singular | desert island |
|---|---|
| Plural | desert islands |
regular
Synonyms
2 synonymsSee also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.