Desert

Desert

A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than 400 millimetres (16 in). A common definition distinguishes between true deserts, which receive less than 250 millimetres (10 in) of average annual precipitation, and semideserts or steppes, which receive between 250 millimetres (10 in) and 400 to 500 millimetres (16 to 20 in).

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Famous quotes containing the word desert:

    The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
    So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
    Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
    And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
    “Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
    —T.S. (Thomas Stearns)

    This ripe rebuke, this burgeoning affluence
    Mocks me and mocks the desert of my bed.
    Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)

    For beauty, wit,
    High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,
    Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
    To envious and calumniating time.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)