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a wide, barren plain; a wild; a waste; a desert; a pathless waste of any kind. The wat'ry wilderness yields no supply. Waller.

Pertaining to, resembling, or full of, brambles. "In brambly wildernesses." Tennyson.

bring thee forth with pain, with care to breed. Dryden. Born and bred on the verge of the wilderness. Everett.

yden. When the cold north wind bloweth, . . . it devoureth the mountains, and burneth the wilderness, and consumeth the Ecclus. xliii. 20, 21.

my supplications when I cry unto thee. Ps. xxviii. 2. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Is. xl. 3. Some cried after him to return. Bunyan.

y be capable of sustaining a population, but has been left unoccupied and uncultivated; a wilderness; a solitary place. He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Is. li. 3.

ved of inhabitants; deserted; uninhabited; hence, gloomy; as, a desolate isle; a desolate wilderness; a desolate house. I will make Jerusalem . . . a den of dragons, and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant. Jer. ix. 11. And the silvery marish flowers that throng The desolate creeks and pools…

r supply fully with food; to feed; to satisfy. Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fillso great a multitude Matt. xv. 33. Things that are sweet and fat are more filling. Bacon.

t. Wild howled the wind. Sir W. Scott. Howling monkey. (Zoöl.) See Howler, 2. -- Howling wilderness, a wild, desolate place inhabited only by wild beasts. Deut. xxxii. 10.

d their tentis up they gan bigge [to build]. Robert of Brunne. O for a lodge in some vast wilderness! Cowper.

The food supplied to the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness of Arabia; hence, divinely supplied food. Ex. xvi. 15.

oken loose from moral bands. Dryden. She had wandered without rule or guidance in a moral wilderness. Hawthorne.

One who goes before, as into the wilderness, preparing the way for others to follow; as, pioneers of civilization; pioneers of reform.

emote from human abodes and cultivation; in a state of nature; nature; wild; as, a savage wilderness.

ymbolically placed the sins of the people, after which he was suffered to escape into the wilderness. Lev. xvi. 10.

g; to score the back with a lash. Let us score their backs. Shak. A briar in that tangled wilderness Had scored her white right hand. M. Arnold.

solitary or lonely place; a desert or wilderness. In these deep solitudes and awful cells Where heavenly pensive contemplation dwells. Pope.

That which is sweet or pleasant in odor; a perfume. "A wilderness of sweets." Milton.

In the direction of; to. He set his face toward the wilderness. Num. xxiv. 1. The waves make towards'' the pebbled shore. Shak.

A footpath or road track through a wilderness or wild region; as, an Indian trail over the plains.