1650–60, < North American French; French: low hill, mound, Old French: landmark, target, apparently feminine derivative of but butt 2
A butte is a flat-topped hill that stands alone in a relatively flat area. There are many buttes in the Southwest and Western United States. The dramatic hills in the background of old Western films are often buttes — the director John Ford featured Arizona's Mitten Buttes in seven of his movies. Geographers distinguish between a butte and a mesa, a larger, flat-topped hill: a butte's top is narrower than it is tall, and a mesa's is wider than its height. The explorers Lewis and Clark are responsible for introducing this French word to English speakers.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
There will be two reservoirs — one up on the butte, another 1,000 feet below.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
An Oregon butte unfortunately titled “Swastika Mountain” will be getting a new name in the near future.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 24, 2022
Perhaps it was Shorty’s, waiting to take guests back down the butte that day.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 5, 2022
One cold winter solstice day, we found ourselves alone on the summit of a rock-topped butte, watching transfixed as a huge black cloud barreled toward us in an otherwise blue sky.
From New York Times ● Mar. 18, 2022
The eagle screamed to announce his success, then flew toward a distant butte.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
Christian Parmelee Edwards, 44, was taken into custody March 19 at his home at 50730 Granite Butte Way, the Madera County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 2026
General funding was also received from Red Butte Garden and the Natural History Museum of Utah.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 25, 2026
Sandfire Resources has an 87% stake in Sandfire Resources America, which owns the Black Butte project.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025
Navan, the corporate travel and expense-management company that went public in October, declined 13% after reporting a wider third-quarter loss and revealing that Chief Financial Officer Amy Butte would be stepping down Jan. 9.
From Barron's ● Dec. 16, 2025
We were in Butte on the Fourth of July with twin purposes, because nearly everything had a twin purpose now.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
As Arizona yielded to New Mexico, the dirt seemed to get redder and the ridges rose to form buttes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 9, 2025
Most of the land in the buttes is held by a small number of legacy families who primarily use the fields for grazing cattle and sheep.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2024
My roughly 60-mile section was marked by sienna-hued mesas and buttes, and cornflower-blue skies.
From New York Times ● May 1, 2024
Across 15,000 square miles, between Spokane, Quincy and Walla Walla, the landscape is teeming with desolate cliffs, buttes and canyons.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 2, 2024
The spot Guardian found is flat and a safe area, free from obstacles such as mountainous buttes or large boulders.
From "A Rover's Story" by Jasmine Warga
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
