arroyo

plural arroyos

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)

   1 more example

   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

   Synonyms: wadi, nahal, wash, dry wash[regiolect

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

plural Arroyos

1. A surname from Spanish.