Word.ws English Dictionary

vernal pool

vernal pool noun: a temporary pool that occurs seasonally in places with poor drainage, often with the onset of spring rains.

vernal pool: a temporary pool that occurs seasonally in places with poor drainage, often with the onset of...
Image: Pacific Southwest Region USFWS from Sacramento, US, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

vernal pool (plural vernal pools)

  1. A temporary pool that occurs seasonally in places with poor drainage, often with the onset of spring rains.
    • The report Sliding toward Extinction indicated that 66%, or nearly 2.8 million acres (1,131,000 ha), of Central Valley vernal pools has been lost.1992, Allan A. Schoenherr, A Natural History of California, page 526
    Synonyms:
    turlough

Synonyms of vernal pool

Forms of vernal pool

pluralvernal pools

Origin of vernal pool

From vernal (“occurring in spring”) + pool.

Questions about vernal pool

What does vernal pool mean?
Vernal pool means a temporary pool that occurs seasonally in places with poor drainage, often with the onset of spring rains.
What part of speech is vernal pool?
Vernal pool is a noun.
What is the plural of vernal pool?
The plural of vernal pool is vernal pools.

Words near vernal pool in the dictionary

  1. vernal equinoxes
  2. vernal grass
  3. vernal grasses
  4. vernal point
  5. vernal points
  6. vernal pool
  7. vernal pools
  8. vernalgrass
  9. vernalgrasses
  10. vernalin
  11. vernalisation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vernal pool (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: “vernal pool.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vernal_pool. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.