1
general::
Phrase(s): desert someone or something to someone or something
to abandon someone or something to someone or something; to let someone or something have someone or something. • Who deserted this child to her horrible fate? • Sam deserted his land to the horde of grubby prospectors.
McGrawhill's American Idioms And Phrasal Verbs
4
general::
noun ADJ. arid, barren, dry green fields surrounded by arid desert | vast | inhospitable | Arctic, polar | cultural (figurative) The theatre and cinema closed and the town became a cultural desert. VERB + DESERT become, turn into/to The land loses its protective cover of vegetation and soon turns into desert. | cross He became the first person to cross the desert on foot. DESERT + VERB stretch The desert stretched for endless miles on all sides of us. DESERT + NOUN area, country, land, landscape, region vast tracts of desert land | conditions | heat | sand, soil | floor, surface | plain | animal, plant PREP. across/through the ~ their journey across the desert | in the ~ cold nights in the desert | into the ~ He drove off into the desert.
Oxford Collocations Dictionary