1. See alone. 4. uninhabited, unpopulated. 5. secluded.
Examples from the web for lonely
Doctors have known for a long time that feeling lonely can make you physically sick, but until now they did not know why.
He strolled the waterfront with the beer thudding inside his head, a lonely feeling pulling at his heart.
It can be lonely at the top, especially when it comes to global university rankings.
It is not that the lonely and the gregarious are genetically different from each other.
The lonely polar bear-the unofficial mascot of global warming.
Sleeping with a lonely heart brings a hormone jolt in the morning.
They are bleak and lonely and depressing and beautiful.
If it's harder to find privacy, it's also harder to be lonely.
Such signals could warn other elephants of predators, help a lonely elephant find a mate, or direct them towards food and water.
For a newly formed amino acid in the early ocean, it must have been a lonely life indeed.
British Dictionary definitions for lonely
lonely
/ˈləʊnlɪ/
adjective -lier, -liest
1.
unhappy as a result of being without the companionship of others: a lonely man
2.
causing or resulting from the state of being alone: a lonely existence
3.
isolated, unfrequented, or desolate
4.
without companions; solitary
Derived Forms
loneliness, noun
Word Origin and History for lonely
adj.
c.1600, "solitary, lone," from lone + -ly (1). Meaning "dejected for want of company" is from 1811. Lonely heart (n.) "a lonely-hearted person" is from 1922. Lonely hearted (adj.) is attested from 1820.