arroyo
nounUK /əˈɹɔɪ.əʊ/ · US /əˈɹɔɪ.oʊ/
Etymology Borrowed from Spanish arroyo.
1
A dry creek or streambed, a gulch which temporarily or seasonally fills and flows (after sufficient rain).
- Near-synonyms: wadi, nahal, wash, dry wash (synonymous other than regiolectal specificity)
- Across the field were the tents, and beyond them the brown cottonfields that stretched out of sight to the brown arroyo foothills and then the snow-capped Sierras in the morning air.1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, chapter 13, in On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC, part 1:
2
Any watercourse; any rivulet (whether it flows year-round or only seasonally).
- Derived terms
- arroyo grape, arroyo toad, arroyo willow