Resembling or having the characteristics of a desert; arid and barren like a desert.
From 'desert' plus '-like' (meaning similar to). This compound formation is much more common than 'desertic' in everyday English, allowing speakers to indicate desert-like qualities in accessible language.
English loves '-like' compounds because they're intuitive—you immediately understand desertlike means 'like a desert.' Many original '-ic' words came into English this way: 'starlike' eventually became 'stellar,' 'moonlike' influenced 'lunar,' showing how '-like' forms often precede official scientific terms.
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