1
as in lone
not being in the company of others
a single lonely cactus in the desert
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in lonesome
sad from lack of companionship or separation from others
I was lonely when I first got to Los Angeles, but I soon made friends
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3
as in bleak
causing or marked by an atmosphere lacking in cheer
the lonely streets of a honky-tonk beach town in the off-season
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Recent Examples of lonely
Hometown gossips and lonely girls to the front.
—
Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 6 Jan. 2026
Without it, the state of American public broadcasting looks a lot lonelier.
—Fran Hoepfner, Vulture, 5 Jan. 2026
But some have a far lonelier existence, drifting through interstellar space without a sun to call their own.
—Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Scientific American, 1 Jan. 2026
One can be alone but not lonely, or lonely in a crowd.
—Peter Smith, Los Angeles Times, 1 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for lonely
Recent Examples of Synonyms for lonely
Adjective
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Travis Konecny scored the lone Philadelphia goal 55 seconds into the second period.—
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Commissioner Ralph Rosado was the lone no-vote, questioning Reyes’ management experience and pointing to the absence of a national search.—
Adjective
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The lonesome alternate takes of familiar songs from the era imply a slightly more stripped though no less gorgeous Bars coming out in some parallel universe.—
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Noticing Mahomes was still holding it, Kelce leaked into the flat uncovered and took a short pass 38 yards all by his lonesome inside the 10.—
Adjective
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Her family later learned that on April 23, 2021 — the day Parker found his aunt in a bleak mood — Dee had an angry confrontation over financial issues with two employees of the trucking company.—
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Some of Tarr’s most memorable scenes feature landscapes, often bleak and despairing settings of decaying Hungarian towns, punctuated with close-ups of characters’ faces.—
Adjective
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Many solitary bees, moths, and other pollinators overwinter in old leaf litter or in the hollow stems of perennial plants.—
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The seventh and senior justice, Jorge Labarga, born in Cuba and raised in Pahokee, will continue to write solitary dissents.—
Adjective
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Sátántangó’s desolate landscapes, dominated by mud, wind, and overcast skies, summoned a vision of earthly purgatory unrivaled in almost all of cinema.—
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Thanksgiving is desolate with freezing rain.—
Adjective
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Don't feel afraid to play with bold (but dark) colors and various materials.—
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Open my soul to the vast dark places.—
Adjective
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According to another shopper, the battery lasts long enough to clean their entire apartment in one single charge.—
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Cosmic said the Santa Rosa home is the first single-family home being built using its AI technology.—
Adjective
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Car lots, mechanic shops, and cafes line a forlorn stretch of Route 66 in central Amarillo, but vibrant art galleries, antique shops, restaurants, a bookstore, and record shop are concentrated in a lively 13-block strip of the famed highway west of the central business district.—
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Highways, viaducts, giant interchanges, and a major Metro junction viciously mutilated São Paulo’s downtown in the 1960s and ’70s, demoting it from a popular residential area to a commercial transfer hub, overcrowded and polluted by day but forlorn by night.—
Cite this Entry
“Lonely.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/lonely. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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