resaca

Etymology

From Spanish resaca, probably from resacar (“retake”), though possibly from rio seco (“dry river”) instead.

Why this word is great

RESACA — [Noun] A dry riverbed or abandoned channel, particularly those skeletal veins of the Rio Grande that lace southern Texas and northeastern Mexico, or a small, isolated body of water. From Spanish resaca, possibly from resacar ("retake") or rio seco ("dry river"). Unlike "arroyo" (which implies cyclical flooding) or "oxbow" (which memorializes a river’s meander), resaca is the ghost of a river—permanently departed. It is the cracked clay underfoot where catfish once twisted in the current, the bleached ribs of a cottonwood skeleton standing sentinel over dust, the shallow depression where children kick up clouds of silt that once settled softly on the riverbed. A resaca is not just a place where a river was, but where it will never be again.

noun

  1. A dry river bed, a former channel of the Rio Grande, found in the southern half of Cameron County, Texas and deep into northeastern portions of the State of Tamaulipas, Mexico.“The road lay over dark resacas and running streams, where volcanic rocks rose above each other^([sic]), and every detour might have been made a fortress.”
  2. A small body of water.