as in deserts
land that is uninhabited or not fit for crops
with proper irrigation and fertilizer, they turned the desert wasteland into a fertile plain
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Recent Examples of wastelands
Now, the anti-wealth Marxist agenda taking over the Democratic Party is worsening the divide, turning blue-state economies into wastelands and condemning their least mobile residents to poverty.
—
Betsy McCaughey, Boston Herald, 16 Mar. 2026
Thirty minutes south, on the Tennessee side of the border, Elon Musk has already begun transforming the industrial wastelands of South Memphis.
—Mackenzie Sigalos, CNBC, 1 Jan. 2026
Where homes, buildings and fields once stood in the southern city of Rafah, there were now craters and barren wastelands.
—Stephen Sorace, FOXNews.com, 8 Oct. 2025
This quiz invites you to explore the darker corners of sci-fi literature, where monsters lurk not just in shadows, but in laboratories, alien worlds and post-apocalyptic wastelands.
—Kenna Hughes-Castleberry, Space.com, 16 Sep. 2025
Krasheninnikov is located in the Kronotsky Nature Reserve, which said in a statement that there is no threat to any people or infrastructure as the volcano is largely surrounded by wastelands.
—Chad De Guzman, Time, 4 Aug. 2025
Betsy McCaughey, Boston Herald, 16 Mar. 2026
Thirty minutes south, on the Tennessee side of the border, Elon Musk has already begun transforming the industrial wastelands of South Memphis.
—Mackenzie Sigalos, CNBC, 1 Jan. 2026
Where homes, buildings and fields once stood in the southern city of Rafah, there were now craters and barren wastelands.
—Stephen Sorace, FOXNews.com, 8 Oct. 2025
This quiz invites you to explore the darker corners of sci-fi literature, where monsters lurk not just in shadows, but in laboratories, alien worlds and post-apocalyptic wastelands.
—Kenna Hughes-Castleberry, Space.com, 16 Sep. 2025
Krasheninnikov is located in the Kronotsky Nature Reserve, which said in a statement that there is no threat to any people or infrastructure as the volcano is largely surrounded by wastelands.
—Chad De Guzman, Time, 4 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for wastelands
Noun
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Parks turned into deserts, great skyscrapers leveled by blows from the tails of the monsters, and the entire population threatened in the panic and pestilence that followed the invasion.—
Rick Kogan,
Chicago Tribune,
31 Mar. 2026
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Satellite communication enables users to stay connected in remote areas such as mountains, deserts, offshore locations, and disaster zones.—
Atharva Gosavi,
Interesting Engineering,
31 Mar. 2026
Noun
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The forests are marked by sparse conifer stands, woodlands, herbaceous vegetation, and unvegetated barrens that dominate the transition to Arctic tundra.—
Julia Jacobo,
ABC News,
10 Feb. 2026
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The population surge caused widespread urchin barrens across the islands.—
Aamir Khollam,
Interesting Engineering,
12 Dec. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Wastelands.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/wastelands. Accessed 2 Apr. 2026.
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