cryptorheic

English

Etymology

From English crypto- (prefix meaning ‘hidden’) +‎ Ancient Greek ῥέω (rhéō, “to flow, gush, stream”) +‎ -ic (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining’ to forming adjectives).

Adjective

cryptorheic (not comparable)

  1. (hydrology, of a basin or lake) Draining through invisible, subterranean outflows.
    Coordinate terms: endorheic, exorheic
    • 1973, W. Manser, New Guinea Barrier Reefs, page 171:
      A reasonable deduction would be that under karst (cryptorheic) conditions no surface streams would exist and that we should not look for a "drowned" surface drainage pattern.
    • 1998, David P. Olson, Freshwater Biodiversity of Latin America and the Caribbean, page 35:
      Sonoran — extends from Río Sonoyta to the Río Yaqui and intervening small basins, most of them cryptorheic, through desert and semi-desert areas, west of the Sierra Madre Occidental.
    • 2020, JA León-Borges, F Viveros-Jiménez, A. E. Rodre/guez-Mata, M.A. Lizardi-Jiménez, “Hydrocarbon contamination patterns in the cenotes of the Mexican caribbean: the application of principal component analysis”, in Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, volume 105:
      One of these is the cryptorheic basin (hidden river) in the Yucatan State, north of Quintana Roo.
  2. (medicine, obsolete) Pertaining to an unspecified or unidentified discharge or secretion.
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