The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Desert \De*sert"\ (d[-e]*z[~e]rt"), n. [OF. deserte, desserte,
   merit, recompense, fr. deservir, desservir, to merit. See
   Deserve.]
   That which is deserved; the reward or the punishment justly
   due; claim to recompense, usually in a good sense; right to
   reward; merit.
   [1913 Webster]

         According to their deserts will I judge them. --Ezek.
                                                  vii. 27.
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         Andronicus, surnamed Pius
         For many good and great deserts to Rome. --Shak.
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         His reputation falls far below his desert. --A.
                                                  Hamilton.

   Syn: Merit; worth; excellence; due.
        [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Desert \Des"ert\ (d[e^]z"[~e]rt), n. [F. d['e]sert, L. desertum,
   from desertus solitary, desert, pp. of deserere to desert;
   de- + serere to join together. See Series.]
   1. A deserted or forsaken region; a barren tract incapable of
      supporting population, as the vast sand plains of Asia and
      Africa which are destitute of moisture and vegetation.
      [1913 Webster]

            A dreary desert and a gloomy waste.   --Pope.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. A tract, which may be capable of sustaining a population,
      but has been left unoccupied and uncultivated; a
      wilderness; a solitary place.
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            He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her
            desert like the garden of the Lord.   --Is. li. 3.
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   Note: Also figuratively.
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               Before her extended
               Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life.
                                                  --Longfellow.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Desert \De*sert"\ (d[-e]*z[~e]rt"), v. t. [imp. & p. p.
   Deserted; p. pr. & vb. n. Deserting.] [Cf. L. desertus,
   p. p. of deserere to desert, F. d['e]serter. See 2d
   Desert.]
   1. To leave (especially something which one should stay by
      and support); to leave in the lurch; to abandon; to
      forsake; -- implying blame, except sometimes when used of
      localities; as, to desert a friend, a principle, a cause,
      one's country. "The deserted fortress." --Prescott.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. (Mil.) To abandon (the service) without leave; to forsake
      in violation of duty; to abscond from; as, to desert the
      army; to desert one's colors.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Desert \Des"ert\, a. [Cf. L. desertus, p. p. of deserere, and F.
   d['e]sert. See 2d Desert.]
   Of or pertaining to a desert; forsaken; without life or
   cultivation; unproductive; waste; barren; wild; desolate;
   solitary; as, they landed on a desert island.
   [1913 Webster]

         He . . . went aside privately into a desert place.
                                                  --Luke ix. 10.
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         Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
         And waste its sweetness on the desert air. --Gray.
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   Desert flora (Bot.), the assemblage of plants growing
      naturally in a desert, or in a dry and apparently
      unproductive place.

   Desert hare (Zool.), a small hare (Lepus sylvaticus, var.
      Arizon[ae]) inhabiting the deserts of the Western United
      States.

   Desert mouse (Zool.), an American mouse (Hesperomys
      eremicus), living in the Western deserts.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Desert \De*sert"\, v. i.
   To abandon a service without leave; to quit military service
   without permission, before the expiration of one's term; to
   abscond.
   [1913 Webster]

         The soldiers . . . deserted in numbers.  --Bancroft.

   Syn: To abandon; forsake; leave; relinquish; renounce; quit;
        depart from; abdicate. See Abandon.
        [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

desert
    n 1: arid land with little or no vegetation
    v 1: leave someone who needs or counts on you; leave in the
         lurch; "The mother deserted her children" [syn: abandon,
         forsake, desolate, desert]
    2: desert (a cause, a country or an army), often in order to
       join the opposing cause, country, or army; "If soldiers
       deserted Hitler's army, they were shot" [syn: defect,
       desert]
    3: leave behind; "the students deserted the campus after the end
       of exam period"

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

292 Moby Thesaurus words for "desert":
   Arabia Deserta, Death Valley, Lebensraum, Sahara, Saharan, abandon,
   abscond, absquatulate, acarpous, advantageousness, agreeableness,
   air space, alkali flat, alluvial plain, anhydrous, apostacize,
   apostatize, arid, athirst, auspiciousness, back country, bare,
   barren, barren land, barrens, basin, be unfaithful, beat a retreat,
   beneficialness, benevolence, benignity, betray, bolt, bone-dry,
   bottomland, break away, break faith, brush, bush, bushveld, campo,
   celibate, champaign, champaign country, change sides, chastening,
   chastisement, childless, chuck, class, clear out, clear space,
   clearance, clearing, coastal plain, cogency, comeuppance,
   compensation, cut and run, decamp, defect, degenerate, delta,
   depart, deserted, deserts, deserving, desolate, desolation,
   discipline, distant prospect, down, downs, drained, dried-up,
   droughty, dry, dry as dust, due, dust bowl, dusty, elope, empty,
   empty view, escape, excellence, exhausted, expedience, fail,
   fairness, fall away, fall off, fallow, favorableness, fell,
   fineness, first-rateness, flat, flat country, flatland, flats,
   flee, fly, forsake, fruitless, fugitate, gaunt, gelded, glade, go,
   go AWOL, go back on, go over, goodliness, goodness, grace,
   grass veld, grassland, healthiness, heath, helpfulness,
   high and dry, howling wilderness, impotent, ineffectual, infecund,
   infertile, issueless, jejune, jilt, juiceless, jump, jump bail,
   just deserts, justice, karroo, kindness, lande, leached, leave,
   let down, levant, level, like parchment, living space, llano,
   lonely, lowland, lowlands, lunar landscape, lunar mare,
   lunar waste, make off, mare, maroon, menopausal, merit, mesa,
   mesilla, moor, moorland, niceness, nonfertile, nonproducing,
   nonproductive, nonprolific, open country, open space, outback,
   pampa, pampas, pass the buck, payment, peneplain, plain, plains,
   plateau, playa, pleasantness, prairie, profitableness, pull out,
   punishment, quality, quit, quittance, rat, recompense, renegade,
   renege, renounce, reprisal, repudiate, requital, retribution,
   revenge, reward, rewardingness, right, rights, run, run away,
   run away from, run away with, run for it, run off, run out on,
   salt flat, salt marsh, salt pan, sandy, sapless, savanna, sebkha,
   secede, sell out, shift the blame, shift the responsibility,
   show the heels, sine prole, skedaddle, skillfulness, skip,
   skip out, slip the cable, soundness, steppe, sterile, strand,
   sucked dry, superiority, switch, switch over, table, tableland,
   take French leave, take flight, take to flight, take wing,
   teemless, tergiversate, terrain, territory, thirsting, thirsty,
   throw over, tree veld, tundra, turn, turn against, turn cloak,
   turn tail, turn traitor, uncultivated, undamped, unfertile,
   unfruitful, uninhabited, unpeopled, unplowed, unproductive,
   unprolific, unsown, untilled, unwatered, upland, usefulness,
   vacant, validity, value, vega, veld, virgin, virtue, virtuousness,
   waste, wasted, wasteland, waterless, weald, weary waste,
   what is due, what is merited, wholeness, wide-open spaces, wild,
   wilderness, wildness, wilds, without issue, wold, worth



Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary:

Desert
   (1.) Heb. midbar, "pasture-ground;" an open tract for pasturage;
   a common (Joel 2:22). The "backside of the desert" (Ex. 3:1) is
   the west of the desert, the region behind a man, as the east is
   the region in front. The same Hebrew word is rendered
   "wildernes," and is used of the country lying between Egypt and
   Palestine (Gen. 21:14, 21; Ex. 4:27; 19:2; Josh. 1:4), the
   wilderness of the wanderings. It was a grazing tract, where the
   flocks and herds of the Israelites found pasturage during the
   whole of their journey to the Promised Land.

     The same Hebrew word is used also to denote the wilderness of
   Arabia, which in winter and early spring supplies good pasturage
   to the flocks of the nomad tribes than roam over it (1 Kings
   9:18).

     The wilderness of Judah is the mountainous region along the
   western shore of the Dead Sea, where David fed his father's
   flocks (1 Sam. 17:28; 26:2). Thus in both of these instances the
   word denotes a country without settled inhabitants and without
   streams of water, but having good pasturage for cattle; a
   country of wandering tribes, as distinguished from that of a
   settled people (Isa. 35:1; 50:2; Jer. 4:11). Such, also, is the
   meaning of the word "wilderness" in Matt. 3:3; 15:33; Luke 15:4.

     (2.) The translation of the Hebrew _Aribah'_, "an arid tract"
   (Isa. 35:1, 6; 40:3; 41:19; 51:3, etc.). The name Arabah is
   specially applied to the deep valley of the Jordan (the Ghor of
   the Arabs), which extends from the lake of Tiberias to the
   Elanitic gulf. While _midbar_ denotes properly a pastoral
   region, _arabah_ denotes a wilderness. It is also translated
   "plains;" as "the plains of Jericho" (Josh. 5:10; 2 Kings 25:5),
   "the plains of Moab" (Num. 22:1; Deut. 34:1, 8), "the plains of
   the wilderness" (2 Sam. 17:16).

     (3.) In the Revised Version of Num. 21:20 the Hebrew word
   _jeshimon_ is properly rendered "desert," meaning the waste
   tracts on both shores of the Dead Sea. This word is also
   rendered "desert" in Ps. 78:40; 106:14; Isa. 43:19, 20. It
   denotes a greater extent of uncultivated country than the other
   words so rendered. It is especially applied to the desert of the
   peninsula of Arabia (Num. 21:20; 23:28), the most terrible of
   all the deserts with which the Israelites were acquainted. It is
   called "the desert" in Ex. 23:31; Deut. 11:24. (See JESHIMON.)

     (4.) A dry place; hence a desolation (Ps. 9:6), desolate (Lev.
   26:34); the rendering of the Hebrew word _horbah'_. It is
   rendered "desert" only in Ps. 102:6, Isa. 48:21, and Ezek. 13:4,
   where it means the wilderness of Sinai.

     (5.) This word is the symbol of the Jewish church when they
   had forsaken God (Isa. 40:3). Nations destitute of the knowledge
   of God are called a "wilderness" (32:15, _midbar_). It is a
   symbol of temptation, solitude, and persecution (Isa. 27:10,
   _midbar_; 33:9, _arabah_).