Word.ws English Dictionary

rainshadow

rainshadow is the alternative form of rain shadow.

Meaning of rain shadow

Noun

rain shadow (plural rain shadows)

  1. An area of diminished precipitation on the lee side of mountains, caused by the prior release of moisture on the windward side.
    • As a necessary consequence of this analogous structure, we find no forests eastward of the slopes of the Rocky Mountains and the Cordilleras, or in their "rain shadow," but open steppes...1876, Oscar Peschel, The Races of Man: and Their Geographical Distribution, D. Appleton & Company, page 422

Forms of rainshadow

pluralrainshadows

Origin of rainshadow

From rain + shadow.

Questions about rainshadow

What is rainshadow the alternative form of?
Rainshadow is the alternative form of rain shadow.

Words near rainshadow in the dictionary

  1. rainscreen
  2. rainscreens
  3. Rainsford
  4. rainshade
  5. rainshades
  6. rainshadow
  7. rainshadows
  8. rainshower
  9. rainshowers
  10. rainslicker
  11. rainslickers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rainshadow (page history and authors); rain shadow (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.

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