Definition of "desart"
desart
noun
plural desarts
Quotations
And novv thee vvorſhip, mongſt that bleſſed throng / Of heauenlie Poets and Heroes ſtrong. / So thou both here and there immortall art, / And euerie vvhere through excellent deſart.
1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “The Ruines of Time”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], signature C2, verso
See, from afar, yon Rock that mates the Sky, / About vvhoſe Feet ſuch Heaps of Rubbiſh lye: / Such indigeſted Ruin; bleak and bare, / Hovv deſart novv it ſtands, expos'd in Air!
1697, Virgil, “The Eighth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], page 441, lines 252–255
[T]his profeſſion of a ſingle life vvas propagated in Egypt by Antony, and in Syria by Hilarion; and ſpred ſo faſt, that ſoon after the time of Julian the Apoſtate a third part of Egyptians vvere got into the deſarts of Egypt.
a. 1728 (date written), Isaac Newton, “Of the King who Did According to His Will, and Magnified Himself above Every God, and Honoured Mahuzzims, and Regarded Not the Desire of Women”, in Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John. […], London: […] J. Darby and T. Browne […]; and sold by J. Roberts […], published 1733, part I (Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel), pages 197–198
We are like people on a desart island, out here in the wilderness—and if ships won't arrive to tell us how matters come on, we must send one out to l'arn it for us.Probably eye dialect.
1843, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter VIII, in Wyandotté, or The Hutted Knoll. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, page 126