malpais

American  

[mahl-pah-ees] / ˌmɑl pɑˈis /

noun

1. Southwestern U.S. an extensive area of rough, barren lava flows.

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Etymology

Origin of malpais

1835–45, < Spanish mal país bad country

Example Sentences

Still in low we climbed out of the malpais.

From The Killer by White, Stewart Edward

Examples of ancient paleography were, however, discovered a short distance higher up the river on malpais rock, which is harder and less rapidly eroded.

From Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744 by Fewkes, Jesse Walter

From it one looked down into the deep gorge of the Southern Guaso Nyero, and across to a tangle of eroded mountains and malpais that filled the eye.

From African Camp Fires by White, Stewart Edward

Into water-gutted arroyos they descended, slid down breakneck shale ridges, climbed like heather cats the banks of dry washes, pounded over white porous malpais on which no vegetation grew.

From Oh, You Tex! by Raine, William MacLeod

Tell him to send his posse across the malpais toward the rim-rock.

From Oh, You Tex! by Raine, William MacLeod