mesa
mesa Lexical Profile
mesa Game Scores & Validity
• noun
American An isolated, flat-topped hill or mountain with steep sides, characteristically found in arid and semiarid regions such as the southwestern United States.
"The hikers reached the summit of the mesa just in time to watch the sun set over the vast desert horizon."
American A major city in south-central Arizona, United States, located just east of Phoenix in the Sonoran Desert.
Word Nuance & Usage
Often confused with 'butte' and 'plateau'; geographically, a mesa is wider than it is tall, whereas a butte is taller than it is wide, and a plateau is a vastly larger expanse of elevated land.
• Rhymes for mesa
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed into English in the mid-18th century from Spanish 'mesa' (meaning 'table' or 'tableland'), which derives from the Latin 'mensa' (table).
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.