Meaning:
That which is deserved. A reward for what has been done - good or bad.
Background:
Deserts, in the sense of `things deserved' has been used in English since at
least the 13th century. A citation in which it is linked with `just' comes
from 1548 in Nicholas Udall's translation of Erasmus' The first tome or
volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus upon the Newe Testamente:
It procedeth more of their enuie, of their unquietnes of minde... then of
any faute or just deserte in Erasmus.
With this phrase it isn't the origin that is interesting though, but the
spelling. I am often contacted by people pointing out that `just deserts' is
misspelled. They go to great lengths to explain why it should be `just
desserts'. They are wrong, but perhaps understandably so.
- Deserts is now almost always used in reference to desolate and arid
regions of land. Its use to mean `that which is deserved' is now largely
limited to this single phrase.
- Desserts - the last or sweet course of a meal - is widely used and is
pronounced the same way as the deserts in `just deserts'.
So, when hearing the phrase with the pronunciation like `desserts', people
think it must be spelled that way too. The spelling might be more intuitive
if we thought of the phrase as `what you justly deserve'.
Most of the correspondence pointing out the `error' comes from Australia.
That may be coincidence, although it could be that, living in a hot,
English-speaking country, Australians have more exposure to hearing the word
deserts with the stress on `des' than the rest of us.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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One glance told me there is more to 'deserts' than meets the eye. As it turned out,
what a delightful phrase with application galore!
As I have a big ego and use too much force, each time I get injured in BJJ, for
example, I would say I got my just deserts.
