arroyo

Borrowed from Spanish arroyo.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əˈɹɔɪ.əʊ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /əˈɹɔɪ.oʊ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ar‧ro‧yo

arroyo (plural arroyos)

2. A dry creek or streambed, a gulch which temporarily or seasonally fills and flows (after sufficient rain).

   Coordinate term: billabong (similar but not in main channel)

   Near-synonyms: wadi, nahal, wash, dry wash (synonymous other than regiolectal specificity)

   • 1957, Jack Kerouac, chapter 13, in On the Road, Viking Press, →OCLC, part 1:

     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.

3. Any watercourse; any rivulet (whether it flows year-round or only seasonally).

• coulee
• draw
• wash

Borrowed from Spanish arroyo.

• IPA^(key): /a.ʁɔ.jo/

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

arroyo m (plural arroyos)

1. arroyo

• “arroyo”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -oʝo
• Syllabification: a‧rro‧yo

From Vulgar Latin *arrugium, from Latin arrugia (“mineshaft”).

arroyo m (plural arroyos)

1. stream, brook, creek (whether it flows year-round or only seasonally)

• → English: arroyo
• → Esperanto: rojo
• → French: arroyo

arroyo

1. first-person singular present indicative of arroyar

• “arroyo”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025