Meaning & use

semiarid

adjective·Academic

Describing a climate or region that receives slightly more rainfall than a desert but still too little to support most crops without irrigation.

See it in a sentence

The semiarid plains support scrubby grasses and drought-resistant shrubs rather than dense forest.

Farmers in the semiarid region rely heavily on irrigation to grow wheat.

A note on using this word

Semiarid climates fall between arid deserts and more humid grasslands on the scale of annual precipitation.

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