A mirage
The Sahara desert covers most of Northern Africa and the Arabic word for desert is Sahara.So the translation is actually desert desert.Wow that's a lot of sand.
Water is scarce in the desert
The water supply in this desert is basically nonexistent.
I visited the Sahara Desert the summer that I turned three.The Sahara Desert is hot every day and barley ever gets water
Without water, the world would be a barren desert.
Oasis, if it looks like one but is not really there, mirage
The 40 years of wandering in the desert by the israelites was a punishment from god, so those who made the golden calf would not reach the promised land.
The Sahara desert is actually growing due to a process called, sensibly, desertification. In this process, relatively dry areas, mostly those adjacent to deserts, become even more dry, or arid.
You might want to contrast a pond, which is small body of water, with a lake or ocean, which is larger, however, those are not actually opposite, they are just different. I could just as easily say that a desert, which has no water, is the opposite of a pond which is composed of water. But that too is just a difference. Pond does not have an antonym.
The word 'Sahara' means desert.
Ephemeral
the desert = solitudo