vadose

Borrowed from Latin vadosus.

vadose (not comparable)

1. Of or pertaining to water beneath the surface of the earth which is located above the level of the permanent groundwater.
   • 1985, Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, page 60:

     The seep lay high up among the ledges, vadose water dripping down the slick black rock and monkeyflower and deathcamas hanging in a small perilous garden. The water that reached the canyon floor was no more than a trickle and they leaned by turns with pursed lips to the stone like devouts at a shrine.

   • 2003, B. B. Huckell, C. Vance Haynes, “The Ventana Complex: New Dates and New Ideas on Its Place in Early Holocene Western Prehistory”, in American Antiquity, volume 68, number 2, page 357:

     Research has shown bone apatite to undergo chemical exchange with carbonates in either vadose water or groundwater.

• vadose zone
• vadosity

vadose

1. feminine plural of vadoso

• sedavo

vadōse

1. vocative masculine singular of vadōsus