prairie

American  

[prair-ee] / ˈprɛər i /

noun

• prairies
  plural

1. an extensive, level or slightly undulating, mostly treeless tract of land in the Mississippi valley, characterized by a highly fertile soil and originally covered with coarse grasses, and merging into drier plateaus in the west.

2. a tract of grassland; meadow.

3. (in Florida) a low, sandy tract of grassland often covered with water.

4. Southern U.S. wet grassland; marsh.

5. (initial capital letter) a steam locomotive having a two-wheeled front truck, six driving wheels, and a two-wheeled rear truck.

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prairie British  

/ ˈprɛərɪ /

noun

1. (often plural) a treeless grassy plain of the central US and S Canada Compare pampas steppe savanna

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prairie Scientific  

/ prâr′ē /

1. An extensive area of flat or rolling grassland, especially the large plain of central North America.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• prairielike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• prairies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of prairie

1675–85; < French: meadow < Vulgar Latin *prātāria, equivalent to Latin prāt ( um ) meadow + -āria, feminine of -ārius -ary

Explanation

A prairie is a plain of grassy land without many trees. If you're raising cattle, find some prairie land to let them roam around on. Prairie means grassland, and comes from the French word for "meadow." While we might describe a single meadow, we usually use prairie to describe a type of countryside. In the United States, the natural state of the land between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains is prairie, which is why there's so much farming there.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

prairie prairies

Its logo is a prairie dog in a black-and-yellow nuclear symbol.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

The new sound system and eager performances made the prairie feel close.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2026

Still, I appreciated how cinematographer Kevin Atkinson alludes to the dusty Kansas prairie with a shot of a beige strip mall.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 8, 2026

Throughout our history, major domestic quarrels have erupted over economics: the prairie rebellion of the 1890s, the Progressive era, the New Deal.

From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026

Her brother had gone out to Montana himself and assured her this was the text any homesteader must have for farming in eastern prairie country.

From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson

Refinery issues in the Great Lakes and the prairies of Canada fed into significant price increases for those two areas, including the states of Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin.

From MarketWatch ● May 1, 2026

The Florida Everglades are a unique environmental region comprising marshes, prairies, forests, mangroves and estuaries.

From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2025

The uprooting of prairies across the Great Plains and the Dust Bowl could not have occurred without the massive settler movement triggered by the Homestead Act of 1862.

From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2025

The tribe plans projects to create healthier stream habitats for fish, and to restore meadows and prairies.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2025

Jimmy noticed that the grass was sparse here and the land looked like a desert, no longer like the grass prairies to the east.

From "In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse" by Joseph Marshall III

Related Words

• meadow
• pasture
• plain
• savanna
• steppe