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Where does the phrase just deserts come from?
Why do we say that someone has gotten their just deserts? Does this turn of phrase have anything to do with dessert (“a sweet food eaten at the end of a meal”) or desert (“a dry land with few plants and little rainfall”)? In fact, the phrase employs neither of these words. Instead, it uses a completely unrelated word that happens to be pronounced like the word for sweets and spelled like the one for a dry place: desert, meaning “reward or punishment deserved or earned by one’s qualities or acts.” This little-used noun is, as you might have guessed, related to the English verb deserve. It has nothing to do with arid, dry land, or with cookies and ice cream.
Examples of dessert in a Sentence
Alexandra Emanuelli, Travel + Leisure, 21 Sep. 2025
Hype over the late-night dessert chain gained enough traction for Insomnia to spread to campuses all over, including the University of Maryland and the University of Illinois.
—Emma Burleigh, Fortune, 21 Sep. 2025
Sweet but not cloying, figs can go from breakfast to dinner to dessert without so much as a costume change.
—Emily Saladino, Bon Appetit Magazine, 20 Sep. 2025
Pear and Cranberry Crostata Straight from Barefoot Contessa comes one of Garten’s favorite seasonal desserts to make.
—Sophia Beams, Better Homes & Gardens, 20 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for dessert
Cite this Entry
“Dessert.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dessert. Accessed 23 Sep. 2025.
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dessert
noun
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