desert island

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English

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Cayo Bolivar, a desert island in the Caribbean Sea
The islet of Sable Blanc in the Indian Ocean, the modern misconception of a desert island, although missing the typical single coconut palm

Etymology

From the former sense of desert to mean deserted (“uninhabited”), particularly common on Spanish and Portuguese maps during the Age of Exploration as isla desierta, ilha deserta, and Medieval Latin isla deserta (“uninhabited island”). Now frequently misunderstood as simply desert (“dry, arid location”) and imagined as almost entirely sandy. As an indispensable thing, from the idea of loving something to the point one would want it on a deserted island where it would be used ad infinitum but never ad nauseam. Popularized by the radio show Desert Island Discs (first broadcast 1942) which asked guests what they would take with them if marooned alone on an island.

Noun

desert island (plural desert islands)

  1. A deserted island, an uninhabited island, especially one in the tropics and (now frequently misunderstood as) a small and almost entirely sandy desert.
    What would I take with me to a desert island?
    • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 38:
      Desert islands cannot harbour treachery, even from the enemy hidden within man himself.
  2. An island that is completely or mostly a desert, an arid island.
    Why are you marooning me on a desert island? It's probably full of guano. Can't I go somewhere nice?
  3. (figurative, attributive) Describing a thing considered so personally indispensable or beloved that one could never tire of it, used especially for books and music.
    No, no, no. It's a thought experiment. Your desert island books are the one or five or ten books that you could always learn from and never get sick of.
    • 1995, Nick Hornby, High Fidelity, London: Victor Gollancz, →ISBN, page 9:
      My desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups, in chronological order: […]
    • 2017, Alan Rifkin, Burdens by Water: An Unintended Memoir:
      It would be my desert island book, this Love Life for Every Married Couple; marriage being to me the most obvious path to the hardest lesson we've all got to learn […]
    • 2021, E. K. J. Wright, How Do You Stop a Magpie Mobbing Your Mind?:
      A roast dinner would be my desert island meal and I'd missed Dad's divine crispy King Edwards each Sunday.

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