de·sert2 
(d
-zûrt
)
KEY NOUN:
- Something that is deserved or merited, especially a punishment. Often used in the plural: They got their just deserts when the scheme was finally uncovered.
- The state or fact of deserving reward or punishment.
ETYMOLOGY:Middle English, from Old French
deserte, from feminine past participle of
deservir,
to deserve ; see
deserveWORD HISTORY: When Shakespeare says in Sonnet 72, "Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,/To do more for me than mine own desert," he is using the word
desert in the sense of "worthiness; deserving," a word perhaps most familiar to us in the plural, meaning "something that is deserved," as in the phrase
just deserts. This word goes back to the Latin word
d
serv
re, "to devote oneself to the service of," which in Vulgar Latin came to mean "to merit by service."
Dservre is made up of
d-, meaning "thoroughly," and
servre, "to serve." Knowing this, we can distinguish this
desert from
desert, "a wasteland," and
desert, "to abandon," both of which go back to Latin
dserere, "to forsake, leave uninhabited," which is made up of
d-, expressing the notion of undoing, and the verb
serere, "to link together." We can also distinguish all three
deserts from
dessert, "a sweet course at the end of a meal," which is from the French word
desservir, "to clear the table."
Desservir is made up of
des-, expressing the notion of reversal, and
servir (from Latin
servre), "to serve," hence, "to unserve" or "to clear the table."
