Abstract
The term "desolate" appeared more prominently in Czech media discourse concerning the anti-government demonstrations. Currently, there is no established, academically guaranteed definition and delimitation of this term, nor is there a consensus on whether it is a slur.
The present study traces three streams of contemporary media discourse that explicitly thematise the status of "desolate" as a slur. Using Robin Jeshion's semantic approach, it is evaluated which constitutive conditions of the definition of a slur are fulfilled according to the texts analysed.