wasteland means A place with no remaining resources; a desert. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 71 out of 100.
wasteland is pronounced /ˈweɪs(t)ˌland/.
Why “wasteland” is a great word
WASTELAND — [Noun] A barren, desolate, or devastated area of land, often one that is uninhabitable or unproductive. From Middle English wast lond, a modification of earlier weste lond, from Old English weste land ("wasteland"); equivalent to the modern English words waste + land. First recorded in English in the 1630s. Unlike "desert," which denotes a specific arid ecology, or "wilderness," which implies a natural, fecund solitude, "wasteland" connotes a depleted, human-made sterility. It is the chemical orange of a contaminated riverbank, the skeletal girders of a rusted factory, or the cracked earth of a field salted by ancient conquerors—a testament not to what nature has withheld, but to what we have irrevocably taken away.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English wast lond, modification of earlier weste lond, from Old English weste land (“wasteland”); equivalent to waste + land.
noun
- A place with no remaining resources; a desert.“Ten years of drought had left the area a wasteland.”
- Any barren or uninteresting place.“After his experiences, he no longer found western Kansas such a wasteland.”
- A devastated, uninhabitable area.“Another place where, from the aesthetic point of view, a long tunnel would have been a real blessing, is East London as viewed from the carriage window on the old Great Eastern line. Despite a vast change from crowded slums to tracts of wasteland, due to its grim wartime experience, this approach still provides a shabby and unworthy introduction to the great capital.”
- Unused land.“Azaz and Ray were nominated individually for what, at first glance, looked like a project to transform wasteland at South Tottenham station into a community garden.”