- wilderness
- nounADJECTIVE▪ last▪ great, vast▪
Antarctica, the last great wilderness
▪ barren, desert, desolate, howling (esp. AmE)▪He depicted the frontier as a howling wilderness inhabited by uncivilized savages.
▪ frozen▪ remote▪ trackless (esp. AmE), uncharted▪ pristine, unspoiled▪ designated, protected (both AmE)▪The trail passes through a federally designated wilderness.
▪ mountain▪ Alaskan, Arctic, Canadian, etc.▪ political (figurative)▪the man who brought the party back from the political wilderness
VERB + WILDERNESS▪ tame, transform▪They transformed the wilderness into a garden.
▪ explore▪They set out to explore the continent's last great wilderness.
▪ preserve, protect (both esp. AmE)WILDERNESS + NOUN▪ area (esp. AmE)▪officially designated wilderness areas and wildlife refuges
▪ preservation, protection (both esp. AmE)▪ years (figurative, esp. BrE)▪His wilderness years (= when he was out of politics and the public eye) in the 1990s were spent in Canada.
PREPOSITION▪ in the wilderness▪We were hopelessly lost in the wilderness.
Collocations dictionary. 2013.