Etymology

Etymology

English desert and its cognates (including and  desertodésert and desierto) all come from the dēsertum (originally "an abandoned place"), a participle of dēserere, "to abandon." (See  The correlation between aridity and sparse population is complex and dynamic, varying by culture, era, and technologies; thus the use of the word desert can cause confusion. In English prior to the 20th century, desert was often used in the sense of "unpopulated area", without specific reference to aridity; but today the word is most often used in its climate-science sense (an area of low precipitation)—and a desert may be quite heavily populated, with millions of inhabitants. Phrases such as "" and "" in previous centuries did not necessarily imply sand or aridity; their focus was the sparse population. However, the connotation of a hot, parched, and sandy place often influences today's popular interpretation of those phrases.