1800–10, < Spanish; akin to Latin arrūgia mine shaft
Ever see a dried out stream or brook that sometimes, after a good rain, is racing with water? That's an arroyo, or a creek that dries out and fills with water depending on the time of year and weather. The Arroyo Seco in Southern California is an example of a well-known arroyo. Its name, which translates from Spanish to mean "dry stream" is an apt way to describe what an arroyo is — dry at times, and flowing at others. An arroyo can be natural or man-made. The Los Angeles River, for example, is an arroyo that runs along a concrete channel and helps distribute fresh water to the city.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Lummis built his house, El Alisal, with rocks dragged out of the arroyo, and opened it for business, the business of entertaining L.A.’s visiting luminaries.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 17, 2024
"The ongoing and historic amount of rainfall is expected to cause life-threatening to locally catastrophic flash, urban and arroyo flooding including landslides, mudslides and debris flows today," the service said.
From Reuters • Aug. 21, 2023
“Flash, urban, and arroyo flooding is possible with the potential for significant impacts.”
From Seattle Times • Aug. 17, 2023
Boris, 29, ran across the muddy arroyo of the Rio Grande on Dec. 3 from Ciudad Juárez to El Paso.
From Washington Post • Dec. 16, 2021
The bank of the arroyo was undercut so deeply that a strong gust of wind would topple the big tree.
From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
