butte
noun
an isolated hill or mountain rising abruptly above the surrounding land.
butte
1 American
[byoot]
/ bjut /
noun
Western U.S. and Canada.
-
buttes
plural
Butte
2
American
[byoot]
/ bjut /
noun
butte
British
/ bjuːt /
noun
butte
Scientific
/ byo̅o̅t /
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of butte
1650–60, < North American French; French: low hill, mound, Old French: landmark, target, apparently feminine derivative of but butt 2
Explanation
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.
Vocabulary lists containing butte
Geological Features
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Physical Geography - Middle School
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The United States
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The patterns also climb the sides of a nearby butte nicknamed "Miraflores."
From Science Daily ● Aug. 1, 2026
But the one discovered by Saildrone more closely resembles a butte like those found in the deserts of the Southwest.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2023
The mountain’s name, taken from a nearby ranch that used a swastika cattle brand, made news in January when hikers were rescued off the butte, said Kerry Tymchuk, the Oregon Historical Society’s director.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 2, 2022
An Oregon butte unfortunately titled “Swastika Mountain” will be getting a new name in the near future.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 24, 2022
“I don’t know what America’s thinking was,” said Jerrod as the pickup edged its way to a little butte rising out of the stubble and the rock.
From "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream" by H.G. Bissinger
This has depleted reservoirs at Elephant Butte and elsewhere in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, imperiling the many communities that depend on the river for drinking water and irrigation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
Snowpack in the Upper Rio Grande basin, which helps replenish the river, fell to near-record lows last winter, and in July Elephant Butte reservoir dwindled to 1.4% of its original capacity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
Together, these conditions helped push Elephant Butte Reservoir, New Mexico's largest reservoir, to its lowest level since 1971.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 3, 2026
Blackstock, who died in August 2025 at the age of 48, purchased the Butte, Mont., property in April 2022 for an undisclosed amount, just one month after his divorce from Clarkson was finalized.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 21, 2026
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
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 school looks upon red mesas, buttes and Ponderosa forests.
From New York Times ● Feb. 24, 2023
In the darkness, I can make out the shadowy outline of the mountainous buttes that surround us.
From "A Rover's Story" by Jasmine Warga
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
