endorheic

Syllables: en·do·rhe·ic/ˌɛndə(ʊ)ˈɹiːɪk/US/ˌɛndoʊˈɹiɪk/

endorheic adjective: 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.

Image: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

endorheic (not comparable)

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.
- [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...1937, Collected Papers: Osborn Zoological Society, Yale University, volume 19, New Haven, Conn.: Osborn Zoological Society, Yale University, →OCLC, page 94
- In the floor of the Rift Valley most of the streams are affected by the tectonic disturbances and are mostly fault-guided besides being endoreic.1971, Francis F. Ojany, “Drainage Evolution in Kenya”, in S[imeon] H. Ominde, editor, Studies in East African Geography and Development, Berkeley; Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press...
Synonyms:

closed, terminal

Antonyms:

exorheic

endorheic meaning in Indonesian

endorheic in Indonesian

having no outflow to an external body of water such as a river or ocean, and only losing water through evaporation: endoreik

Examples of endorheic in a sentence

On the other hand all closed lakes of the kind now being considered must lie in endorheic regions.1937, Collected Papers: Osborn Zoological Society, Yale University, volume 19, New Haven, Conn.: Osborn Zoological Society, Yale...
The catchment-derived water-supply, in evaporating, leaves salts and the basin becomes an endorheic (internally drained) salt lake.1998, Brian Moss, “Lakes, Pools and Other Standing Waters: Some Basic Features of Their Productivity”, in Ecology of Fresh Waters: Man and...
Tibetan lakes in the endorheic basins serve as a sensitive indicator to regional climate and water cycle variability.2012, Yeqiao Wang, “Remote Sensing of Protected Lands: An Overview”, in Yeqiao Wang, editor, Remote Sensing of Protected Lands (Taylor &...

Synonyms of endorheic

Antonyms

exorheic

Forms of endorheic

alternative form	endoreic
alternative form	endorreic
alternative form	endorrheic
alternative form	endorrhoeic

Origin of endorheic

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).

Questions about endorheic

What does endorheic mean?: Endorheic means 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.
What is endorheic in Indonesian?: Endorheic in Indonesian is endoreik. See Endorheic meaning in Indonesian.
How do you use endorheic in a sentence?: On the other hand all closed lakes of the kind now being considered must lie in endorheic regions.
What part of speech is endorheic?: Endorheic is an adjective.
How do you pronounce endorheic?: Endorheic is pronounced /ˌɛndə(ʊ)ˈɹiːɪk/ (UK).

Words near endorheic in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: endorheic (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-endorheic.wav.

Cite this entry: “endorheic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/endorheic. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.