wadi

Etymology

It is a borrowing from Arabic, in which the word means a valley or river bed.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Etymonline and Klein explain the Arabic word as properly the participle of a verb meaning "it flowed".^[7][6] The same word gave French oued,^[6][2][8] and, through Arabic place names in Spain, the first element in the names of Spanish rivers such as the Guadalquivir and the Guadiana.^[7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A rocky watercourse dry except in the rainy season: the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the word to the early 17th century.^[2][10] Merriam-Webster gives 1828,^[8] Barnhart and Etymonline 1839,^[5][7] and the OED's first quotation is from Kinnear's Cairo, Petra and Damascus in 1839 (1841).^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word has been used in English for the valleys of Arabic-speaking countries, especially in Arabia and North Africa, that turn into watercourses in the rainy season, and for the stream or torrent that runs through them.^[3][5] Weekley quotes its use in a 1917 war report of Anzac mounted troops crossing a wadi near Gaza.^[9] Merriam-Webster adds a geological sense, a shallow, sharply defined depression in a desert with poorly developed drainage.^[8]

Timeline

• early 17th century – a rocky watercourse dry except in the rainy season.^[2][10] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1828,^[8] and Barnhart and Etymonline to 1839.^[5][7]
• 1841 – a ravine that becomes a watercourse in the rainy season; the stream running through it.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. In Arabia, North Africa and the neighbouring dry regions, the bed or valley of a stream that is dry except in the rainy season, often forming an oasis: After the storm the wadi ran with brown water for a day.^[8][11][3]
2. The stream or torrent that runs through such a valley.^[3][2]
3. A shallow, sharply defined depression in a desert with poor drainage.^[8]

Related words

• oued

Usage notes

It is also spelled wady, and the plural is wadis or wadies;^[11][2][8] Merriam-Webster also records the French form oued.^[8]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins