desert
Word forms: deserts, deserting , deserted pronunciation note: The noun is pronounced (dezəʳt ). The verb is pronounced (dɪzɜːʳt ) and is hyphenated de|sert.
1. variable noun [oft in names] A2
A desert is a large area of land, usually in a hot region, where there is almost no water, rain, trees, or plants.
...the Sahara Desert.
...the burning desert sun.
The vehicles have been modified to suit conditions in the desert.
Synonyms: wilderness, waste, wilds, wasteland
2. countable noun [with supplement]
If you refer to a place or situation as a desert, you think it is bad for people because it is not interesting, exciting, or useful in any way. [disapproval]
They live in 12 high-rise apartment buildings that sit in a desert of concrete.
3. verb
If people or animals desert a place, they leave it and it becomes empty.
Farmers are deserting their fields and coming here looking for jobs. [VERB noun]
After the show, the audience deserts the Blackpool streets. [VERB noun]
Synonyms: abandon, leave, give up, quit [informal]
deserted adjective
They went off to swim in the pool, which was now deserted.
She led them into a deserted sidestreet.
Synonyms: empty, abandoned, desolate, neglected
Synonyms: abandoned, neglected, forsaken, lonely
4. verb
If someone deserts you, they go away and leave you, and no longer help or support you.
Mrs Roding's husband deserted her years ago. [VERB noun]
He has been deserted by most of his advisers. [VERB noun]
Synonyms: leave, abandon, dump [informal], strand
desertion (dɪzɜːʳʃən )Word forms: desertions variable noun
...her father's desertion.
Synonyms: abandonment, betrayal, forsaking, dereliction
5. verb
If you desert something that you support, use, or are involved with, you stop supporting it, using it, or being involved with it.
The paper's price rise will encourage readers to desert in even greater numbers. [VERB]
He was pained to see many youngsters deserting kibbutz life. [VERB noun]
Discerning shoppers are deserting supermarkets for artisan bakers. [VERB noun + for]
desertion variable noun
...a mass desertion of the Party by the electorate. [+ of]
...possible further desertions from the party at its conference.
Synonyms: abandonment, betrayal, forsaking, dereliction
Synonyms: defection, betrayal, reneging, repudiation
6. verb
If a quality or skill that you normally have deserts you, you suddenly find that you do not have it when you need it or want it.
Even when he appeared to be depressed, a dry sense of humour never deserted him. [VERB noun]
She lost the next five games, and the set, as her confidence abruptly deserted her. [VERB noun]
7. verb
If someone deserts, or deserts a job, especially a job in the armed forces, they leave that job without permission.
He was a second-lieutenant in the army until he deserted. [VERB]
He deserted from army intelligence last month. [VERB + from]
Synonyms: abscond, flee, defect, decamp
desertion variable noun
The high rate of desertion has added to the army's woes.
There were a growing number of desertions from the federal army.
Synonyms: abandonment, betrayal, forsaking, dereliction
Synonyms: absconding, flight, escape [informal], running away
8. to get your just deserts phrase
If you say that someone has got their just deserts, you mean that they deserved the unpleasant things that have happened to them, because they did something bad. [feelings]
At the end of the book, the bad guys get their just deserts.
Image of desert
© Denis Burdin, Shutterstock
Collocations:
desert an area desert dune desert dust desert dweller desert ecosystem desert floor desert heat desert highway desert kingdom desert land desert landscape desert oasis desert plain desert region desert road desert scrub desert sky desert sun desert terrain desert town desert valley desert wind deserted street dry desert dusty desert empty desert endless desert flat desert harsh desert inhospitable desert remote desert rocky desert surrounding desert vast desert
The small, widely scattered waterholes attract a surprising number of water birds for a desert area.
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In the beginning, it had an area of 14,45,602 acres out of which 11,09,129 acres were occupied by desert area.
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Dust in the core can be linked to increased desert area or wind speed.
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It focused on the themes of reclamation and population of desert area.
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Several civilizations are known to have occupied the site for its strategic value in this remote and arid desert area.
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I am driving on what must be the longest, straightest road in the world, cutting through the desert dunes like a strip of liquorice far into the horizon.
The Sun
The dunes are tucked in between a lake and a boreal forest, comprising a geological landscape similar to desert dunes but in a quite different location.
Smithsonian Mag
Not just any old beach: a pristine pink beach that gambols out for ages beneath deserted dunes, with forest and mountains zigzagging behind, maybe an osprey wheeling overhead.
Times, Sunday Times
However, most species are found in undisturbed habitats, from forests to scrublands and even on desert dunes.
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Within seconds, twelve wild argali sheep gallop in our direction, kicking up a cloud of desert dust in their wake.
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Air pollution episodes such as last week's happen between one and five times a year, although usually without desert dust.
Times, Sunday Times
I was determined to get under the skin of this city — or a few layers of its desert dust, at least.
Times,Sunday Times
The desert dust affects the world's climate more directly, by reflecting sunlight back into space and helping to cool the climate.
Times, Sunday Times
Indeed, there are hints of desert dust in the hand-made striped wallpaper, and of military khaki in the cushion covers for the two custom-made sofas.
Times, Sunday Times
Some of the desert dwellers assumed the same-but later repented.
Christianity Today
They’re not just a bunch of desert dwellers.
Smithsonian
And since all desert dwellers know the map of their country, they can all paint it.
Times, Sunday Times
These desert dwellers form swarms to attack and drain water and bodily fluids from prey.
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Many desert dwellers benefit from an accelerated life cycle, blooming rapidly within weeks after rainfall.
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If bird populations continue to drop, the impacts would likely cascade throughout the desert ecosystem.
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Environmentalists say the festival's remote location leads to vast greenhouse gas emissions and that revellers have damaged the desert ecosystem.
Times, Sunday Times
Instead of a regular mouthpiece, it sports bizarre, tentacle-like fronds, the likes of which are unique among insects—and serve an essential purpose in the desert ecosystem.
Smithsonian Mag
The area encompasses a functioning desert ecosystem with an extraordinary array of biological, scientific, and historic resources.
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It also researches and draws attention to some of the ecological problems in the region and researches the desert ecosystem.
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We crouch on the hot, sandy desert floor.
Smithsonian
We were flying just ten feet off the desert floor.
The Sun
By morning the flowers have dried up, petals drifting to the desert floor.
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The radioactive signals emanating from the baking desert floor were a promising sign.
Times, Sunday Times
It rises 8,500ft from the desert floor and when you get off it's much cooler.
The Sun
His previously expressed opinion was that it would be moved to the winter to avoid the searing desert heat.
Times, Sunday Times
This once out-of-bounds region has amazing desert scenery, but escapes the blistering desert heat.
Times, Sunday Times
If a 71-year-old former smoker with heart disease can run back-to-back marathons in the desert heat, shouldn't we all be doing a bit more?
Times, Sunday Times
I blame it on the desert heat.
The Sun
Even in the desert heat, he would be immaculately turned out.
Times, Sunday Times
However, if it's adventure you're looking for, you'll need to put down the margarita, get off the sunbed and hit the desert highway.
Times,Sunday Times
They have held off all-comers for so long, their defeats come like roundabouts on an endless desert highway.
Times, Sunday Times
Opposition forces advanced via the southern desert highway, the main central coastal road, and from the sea to the north of the town.
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The last panel, a view through a car windshield at night on a long straight desert highway.
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It shows an open desert highway and an orange, wind-up plastic fish floating slowly across the road.
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Honda have done more miles in testing than anyone this winter, including a trip to the desert kingdom where they picked up valuable data.
The Sun
All eyes are on the desert kingdom, known as a swing producer, because it normally adjusts production up or down to keep prices stable.
Times, Sunday Times
The desert kingdom relies on oil for 90 per cent of export earnings.
The Sun
I'd highly recommend joining the queue for a visa, so you can put aside the myths and discover the reality of this mysterious desert kingdom.
Times, Sunday Times
The desert kingdom sits on a quarter of the world's proven oil reserves.
canada.com
These flares caused the desert land to turn into a great, beautiful fertile landscape.
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It was a new approach for the disposal of public desert land, as the federal government decided this task was too large for individual settlers.
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It defines desert land as the land two kilometers outside the border of the city.
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The high evaporation rates on the dunes qualify the area as desert land still, even though precipitation exceeds.
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The initial phase of the project resulted in 27,000 feddans of barren desert land was converted to fertile land.
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Meander along one of five nature trails to soak in all that this desert landscape has to offer.
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They run remarkable three- day walking safaris exploring the desert landscape, bivvying out in swag bags for two unforgettable nights beneath the stars.
Times, Sunday Times
Within an hour the desert landscape has been replaced by the crowded, enclosed suburbs of the city.
The Sun
The film starts with an enigmatic image of a blazing trailer in a desert landscape and from there we follow different narrative strands.
ST
Through a hole in the fan on the wall we could see a desert landscape.
Times, Sunday Times
Founded in a desert oasis, the colonnades and temples raised during its golden age were fashioned out of stone.
Times, Sunday Times
Across the country, from the smallest desert oasis to campuses and state companies, thousands of people are taking up his proposals at official public gatherings.
Times, Sunday Times
Palms are often found at the base of mountains, hills and form around desert oasis in the southwest.
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Tanna often did battle with many of the various criminal element that would threaten the desert oasis.
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Exceptionally hot in the summer, and cold in the winter, the late spring and early fall are popular times to visit this desert oasis.
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When the clash of civilisations comes, will it be on the desert plain and feature two armies, fiercely held beliefs and bonecrunching weaponry?
Times, Sunday Times
It was described as being in a flat, desert plain, with gardens and date groves.
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Crossing desert plains at night, and resting by day, we headed for my home village.
Times, Sunday Times
I moved there because of the wide desert plains, teeming with wild horses.
Times, Sunday Times
Tank columns in the desert plains may disrupt the fragile stability that exists.
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His journeys across the central desert region would make a story in themselves.
Times, Sunday Times
Drivers taking the route are advised by tourism authorities to 'carry extra petrol and plenty of water and food' and to take special care crossing the arid desert region.
Times, Sunday Times
A number of rivers flow through the high desert region.
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There are few local tree species suitable for planting in the desert region and these are slow growing.
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The city maintains a highly educated and skilled population, as the city has modernized and become an important population center in the desert region.
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Yesterday, their driver told AFP that he took them along a desert road where they were stopped and detained by a convoy of soldiers.
Times, Sunday Times (2011)
His idea to create a sanctuary was born after he came across a joey in the pouch of its dead mother beside a desert road.
Times, Sunday Times (2013)
A car had shot out from a side street in front of them, blocking the deserted road.
THE DEVIL'S DOOR (2002)
As new buildings rise from the dusty desert scrub, existing ones are beginning to look more attractive.
Times, Sunday Times
Humans survive by seeking 'wild' food across the desert scrub.
Times, Sunday Times
It was put into a holding pattern so high above the desert scrub it was invisible and inaudible to its targets.
The Sun
My programme included 30 minutes in the hammam inhaling menthol, followed by a 'desert scrub' - a mixture of honey, sand, crushed dates and olive oil - applied with a loofah.
Times, Sunday Times
This plant grows in a number of habitat types, including desert scrub and shrublands, shrubsteppe, and savanna.
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With me were only the sighing wind and the bright desert sky.
Christianity Today
With its spiny fronds and clubbed tufts topped by pungent, waxy flowers twisting towards the desert sky, this desert-adapted shrub has a reputation for otherworldliness.
Smithsonian Mag
The horizon far inland leaps closer as lightning flickers across the desert sky; the heavens plunge into blackness again, and the night stirs with the low growl of thunder.
Times, Sunday Times
All of this took place under a cloudless desert sky, at a temperature somewhere between very hot and excruciating (ideal pumpkin conditions - they require warm soil).
Times, Sunday Times
Gunships are chomping their way through the desert sky.
The Sun
In the winter the rain leaks through the seams; in the summer there is no escape from the scorching desert sun.
Times, Sunday Times (2016)
The Jail regime in crowded cells in the desert sun is so harsh that prisoners die of hunger or exhaustion.
Times, Sunday Times (2015)
The next day I woke to eyeballs that felt like they'd been baking under a desert sun.
Times, Sunday Times (2016)
In front of us, three highresolution cinema screens offered a panoramic view of a village in forbidding desert terrain.
Times, Sunday Times
And nothing drives home the difficulty of dinosaur-tracking than following a palaeontologist through the desert terrain.
Times, Sunday Times
The desert terrain was hostile; the wagon-trail unforgiving.
Times, Sunday Times
The desert terrain was shrouded in fog and smoke.
Houston Chronicle
Its helicopter pilots were just beginning to familiarize themselves with the area's harsh desert terrain last week.
Globe and Mail
It will become a desert town.
Times, Sunday Times
We have had a tumbleweed economy for weeks, with shuttered shops, deserted town centres and a public made fearful of venturing beyond its front doors.
Times,Sunday Times
Shelling and machinegun fire were heard coming from the nearly deserted town after phone and electricity lines were cut.
Times, Sunday Times
The four youngsters were in a deserted town centre hunting virtual characters with their smartphones.
The Sun
Police patrolled deserted towns to deter looters.
The Sun
The boulders are situated in a wide and shallow desert valley, and are found in scattered groups mainly in the western side of the reserve.
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It flows first north then west through a wide, barren desert valley bordered by high rocky buttes and cliffs.
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He's full of dirt roads leading off into deserted valleys, and turnoffs no one else knows.
Christianity Today
Around the corner was a piece of paradise; a farmhouse on a hill in the middle of a deserted valley.
Times, Sunday Times
Sky island ranges are mountains isolated by desert valleys.
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As we tucked into lunch, a sudden gust of desert wind sent plates and glasses crashing.
Times, Sunday Times
Shreds of torn plastic snagged in barbed wire that ran across the top of the mesh fence surrounding them rustled in the desert wind.
Times, Sunday Times
The desert and the desert wind are recurrent symbols throughout.
The Times Literary Supplement
This netted sculpture makes the invisible patterns of desert wind visible to the human eye.
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As fast and powerful as the desert wind it's named after.
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We turned the corner and walked down a deserted street.
The Other Side of Me
The street was deserted except for four men sitting playing dominoes underneath a lamp post.
Times, Sunday Times (2007)
Finally we pull up in a deserted street next to a small bookshop.
LOVE YOU MADLY (2002)
This was 3,500 years ago yet one obelisk survives intact, its carvings preserved by the dry desert air.
The Sun
I was wooed by the sea and the cliffs, the dry desert climate.
The Sun
We'd followed a river on two wheels for more than 400 miles, from snow-capped peaks to hot, dry desert.
Times, Sunday Times
The couple, travelling across a dry desert landscape, find their passage suddenly blocked.
Times, Sunday Times
This process also made the air more humid, which can be beneficial in a dry desert climate.
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The world's biggest property firms and hoteliers are also greening the dusty desert.
Times, Sunday Times
You're in a dusty desert, but all around are icy mountains.
Times, Sunday Times
Faced with danger in dusty deserts and freezing mountains, they must work together to escape the game once and for all.
The Sun
It was deflating to hear at 3am in the empty desert.
The Sun
He left the ecclesiastical and professional landscape of many of the pastors there a flat and empty desert, but now clean.
Christianity Today
It's impossible to go there without admiring the chutzpah that made a high-rise marina and the tallest building in the world rise out of empty desert.
Times, Sunday Times
The land shades from khaki to pink as the sun sets and the stars come out - and from this blissfully empty desert, you can actually see them.
Times, Sunday Times
Large swathes of empty desert are being sold off to developers, and the economic boom can be seen throughout the city as giant construction cranes hover over emerging skyscrapers.
Times, Sunday Times
Named after the camel trains that were once the only way across the endless desert, it's a two-day, 1,850-mile jaunt.
Times, Sunday Times
They have held off all-comers for so long, their defeats come like roundabouts on an endless desert highway.
Times, Sunday Times
An empty guard tower’s view of endless desert.
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While already returning to the camp, we noticed in the distance a huge elm tree karagatch, - lonely, towering amidst the surrounding endless desert.
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The player's character begins on a sand dune in a seemingly endless desert.
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Although only 130 feet high, the dunes tower over the flat desert.
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The distance between two pillars whose latitudes differed by 1 degree in a north-south direction was measured using sighting pegs along a flat desert plane.
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He enjoyed smoking a cigar while watching the sun set over the flat desert.
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He climbed to the top of the cliffs and found himself staring at the edge of a vast expanse of flat desert.
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Harsh desert light will fade to be overtaken by floodlights for what everyone hopes will be an epic finale to a stirring season.
Times, Sunday Times
He begged for letters to stave off his loneliness, hated the harsh desert food, and could not find peace.
Christianity Today
Its helicopter pilots were just beginning to familiarize themselves with the area's harsh desert terrain last week.
Globe and Mail
They moved through the harsh desert by night and slept in rabbit holes by day.
Times, Sunday Times
Participants are expected to organise all their food and water themselves, as well as appropriate shelter for the harsh desert environment.
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He was at home in the vast expanses of inhospitable desert where he could be found barefoot and gesticulating in admiration with his cane.
Times, Sunday Times
The daddy of all marathons, you run 156 miles (251km) in six days over inhospitable desert terrain.
The Sun
Whereas collectors mostly scour inhospitable desert regions, this time they are searching in a densely populated conurbation for dozens of fragments of a 4.5 billionyear-old rock.
Times, Sunday Times
The longer they wrestle with governing one of the poorest and most inhospitable deserts on earth, the more likely they are to start tearing each other apart.
Times, Sunday Times
It felt like the edge of the world as we arrived at our remote desert camp - there was nothing but sand and stars.
The Sun
And the cause of all this trouble - a worker in an electricity substation in a remote desert outpost who appeared to have pulled the wrong lever.
Times, Sunday Times
She was riding in a car with two other actors when the mock-ambush occurred on a remote desert road.
Globe and Mail
In spite of its remote desert location, it supports significant tourist traffic volume.
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It describes a group of university students and staff stranded on a remote desert island occupied by feral chimpanzees.
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The scenery around you, which scientists had expected to be cratered and flat, would instead be like a rocky desert.
Times, Sunday Times
The rocky desert lacks nutrients and other necessities, so growers must enrich the soil one ingredient at a time.
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At night, several flocks coalesce and fly off into the rocky desert far away from any vegetation.
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The ubiquitous snow, tropical forest and rocky desert scenarios make their respective appearances in the different levels, amongst others.
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A stream bubbles into the exhibit from a rocky desert landscape, and a deck overlooks the vibrant scene.
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His aim was to make his palace a centre of luxurious splendour, in stark contrast to the surrounding desert.
Times, Sunday Times
The wetlands filter out harmful residues from fertilizers, oils, and other contaminants that can be found on the roadways and in the surrounding desert.
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The plant grows in the clay, saline and alkaline soils of the land surrounding desert warm springs in the valley.
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The public can simply download and launch a mobile application and aim their devices cameras at the landscape along the border and the surrounding desert.
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After some time, he ventured into the surrounding desert to examine the various ruins.
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Then we headed into the vast desert, which was dotted with industrial plants.
Times, Sunday Times
Its strategic value came from the nearby oasis, the only water source in a vast desert region.
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Nights are mostly cool due to the continental wind blowing from the vast desert to the east.
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Guided by his visions, they begin a long trek across the vast desert terrain.
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The world was turned into a vast desert wasteland and the survivors were left without memories.
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Translations:
Chinese: 沙漠
Japanese: 砂漠
- Franco-
- Francophone
- frank
- frank admission
- frank advice
- frank assessment
- frank conversation
- frank discussion
- frank exchange
- frank expression
- frankfurter
- frankincense
- frankly
- frankly
- frankly ridiculous
- frankly unbelievable
- frankness
- frank opinion
- frantic
- frantic activity
- frantically
- frantically busy
- frantic attempt
- frantic call
- frantic chase