Endorheic
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Of a basin or lake: having no outflow to an external body of water such as a river or ocean, and only losing water through evaporation or seepage into the ground. not-comparable
"[I]n some cases channels leading towards the sea may exist in an endorheic region, in which, however, there is so little rain that the entire load in the water-courses is lost through evaporation before it can reach the mouths of the channels. On the other hand all closed lakes of the kind now being considered must lie in endorheic regions."
Synonyms
All synonymsAntonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"[I]n some cases channels leading towards the sea may exist in an endorheic region, in which, however, there is so little rain that the entire load in the water-courses is lost through evaporation before it can reach the mouths of the channels. On the other hand all closed lakes of the kind now being considered must lie in endorheic regions."
Etymology
PIE word *h₁én From English endo- (prefix meaning ‘internal, inside, within’) + Ancient Greek ῥέω (rhéō, “to flow, gush, stream”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *srew- (“to flow, stream”)) + English -ic (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining’ to forming adjectives).
More for "endorheic"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.