wasteland

Inherited from Middle English wast lond, modification of earlier weste lond, from Old English weste land (“wasteland”); equivalent to waste +‎ land.

• (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/

wasteland (plural wastelands)

1. 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

2. 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.

3. A devastated, uninhabitable area.
   • 1951 October, R. S. McNaught, “Lines of Approach”, in Railway Magazine, page 703:

     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.

   • 2014, Randall Munroe, anonymous quotee, “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.

4. Unused land.
   • 2023 September 20, “National Rail Awards 2023”, in RAIL, page 82:

     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.