What's so confusing about "desert" and "dessert"?

One extra "s" is all that separates a hot, dry landscape from the best part of dinner. "Desert" and "dessert" trip up language learners and native speakers alike, partly because of the spelling and partly because of the pronunciation. Let's sort them out.

Desert

A desert, with one "s," is a large, dry area of land where it hardly ever rains. As a noun, it's pronounced with the stress at the start: DEZ-ert.

• The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world.
• It gets surprisingly cold in the desert at night.
• Camels can go for days in the desert without water.

"Desert" can also be a verb, and then it sounds different: dih-ZURT, with the stress at the end. To desert someone or something means to leave them, usually when they need you.

• His friends deserted him when things got tough.
• The soldiers deserted their posts during the night.

You'll hear the adjective "deserted" a lot too. It means completely empty, with no people around.

• The streets were deserted after midnight.
• We found a deserted beach on the other side of the island.

Dessert

A dessert, with two "s"s, is the sweet course at the end of a meal. German speakers have an advantage here, because Dessert is spelled the same way in German. It's pronounced dih-ZURT, exactly like the verb "desert."

• What's for dessert?
• I'll have the chocolate cake for dessert.
• I'm full, but I always have room for dessert.
• Shall we share a dessert?

If you need a trick to remember the spelling, think of it this way: you always want a second helping of dessert, so it gets a second "s."

Learn more about "desert" and "dessert" in our Daily Dose of Denglisch Docs series.