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.