Word.ws English Dictionary

vadose

vadose adjective: of or pertaining to water beneath the surface of the earth which is located above the level of the permanent groundwater.

Adjective

vadose (not comparable)

  1. Of or pertaining to water beneath the surface of the earth which is located above the level of the permanent groundwater.
    • The seep lay high up among the ledges, vadose water dripping down the slick black rock and monkeyflower and deathcamas hanging in a small perilous garden. The water that reached the canyon floor was no more than a trickle and they leaned by turns with pursed lips to the stone like devouts at a...1985, Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, page 60
    • Research has shown bone apatite to undergo chemical exchange with carbonates in either vadose water or groundwater.2003, B. B. Huckell, C. Vance Haynes, “The Ventana Complex: New Dates and New Ideas on Its Place in Early Holocene Western Prehistory”, in American Antiquity, volume 68, number 2, page 357

Origin of vadose

Borrowed from Latin vadosus.

Questions about vadose

What does vadose mean?
Vadose means of or pertaining to water beneath the surface of the earth which is located above the level of the permanent groundwater.
What part of speech is vadose?
Vadose is an adjective.

Words near vadose in the dictionary

  1. vadms
  2. Vadnagar
  3. Vado
  4. vadocaine
  5. Vadodara
  6. vadose
  7. vadosity
  8. vadouvan
  9. vadralogue
  10. vadralogues
  11. VADs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vadose (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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