Meaning & use
mesa
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Meaning
nouncountableAmericantechnical
A broad, flat-topped hill with steep sides, found in dry regions and standing above the land around it.
Grammar: Often used with names of places in the American Southwest: the mesa above the village.
Patterns
- a mesa above something
- on top of the mesa
We hiked to the top of the mesa to watch the sunrise.
Ancient dwellings were built into the cliffs beneath the mesa.
The highway curves around a red sandstone mesa.
Word forms
| plural | mesas |
|---|
Common combinations
- flat-topped mesa
- A flat-topped mesa rose out of the desert plain.
- top of the mesa
- The view from the top of the mesa stretched for miles.
- sandstone mesa
- Wind and rain have slowly worn down the sandstone mesa.
- desert mesa
- A lone hawk circled over the desert mesa.
- mesa and canyon
- The landscape of mesa and canyon feels endless.
Synonyms and how they differ
- plateau
- Plateau is the general word for any high flat area, while mesa is a smaller, more isolated landform with cliffs on every side.
- tableland
- Tableland refers to a large, high flat region, whereas a mesa is a single detached feature within it.
- butte
- A butte is a similar isolated hill but narrower, so it looks more like a tower than a table.
Opposites
Word family
- tabletop noun
- the flat upper surface of a table, an image that gives the mesa its name
Commonly confused: mesa or butte? mesa or messa?
mesa vs butte
A butte is narrower and taller than a mesa, with a small summit, while a mesa has a wide flat top.
mesa vs messa
This is a misspelling; the geographic term is mesa with one s.
Practice
Which landform has a wide, flat top, steep sides and stands alone in dry country?
Choose one answer.
A mesa is a flat-topped, steep-sided landform in arid land. A delta, glacier and fjord are formed by water or ice and look completely different.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “mesa”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.