desertness

Meanwhile the coarse plants and the general landscape keeps reminding of the 'desertness' of Be'er Sheva.

cafebabel.com 2009

¶ Orig., & archaically in 18 & 19, stressed on 2nd syll. desertness n. barren desolation LME.

languagehat.com: CLUNKY COMPOUNDS. 2005

Desert, -- whether of leaf or sand, -- true desertness, is not in the want of leaves, but of life.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 06, No. 34, August, 1860 Various

Five days of desertness lay between them and any possible base of supplies, and McKenna was not due until the twenty-ninth.

Agua Dulce 1909

She had been set on her way by teamsters who lifted her out of white, hot desertness and put her down at the crossing of unnamed ways, days distant from anywhere.

The Walking Woman 1907

And yet -- and yet -- is it not perhaps to satisfy expectation that one falls into the tragic key in writing of desertness?

The Land of Little Rain 1903

The way up from Mojave to Red Butte is all desertness, affording no pasture and scarcely a rill of water.

The Land of Little Rain 1903

The mesquite is God's best thought in all this desertness.

The Land of Little Rain 1903

Now and then one gets a hint of some small, brown creature, rat or mouse kind, that slips secretly among the rocks; no others adapt themselves to desertness of aridity or altitude so readily as these ground inhabiting, graminivorous species.

The Land of Little Rain 1903

After rains water accumulates in the hollows of small closed valleys, and, evaporating, leaves hard dry levels of pure desertness that get the local name of dry lakes.

The Land of Little Rain 1903