Jump To:

• mesa
  mesa

  noun

  a land formation, less extensive than a plateau, having steep walls and a relatively flat top and common in arid and semiarid parts of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico.
• Mesa
  Mesa

  noun

  a city in central Arizona, near Phoenix.

mesa

¹ American  

[may-suh] / ˈmeɪ sə /

noun

• mesas
  plural

1. a land formation, less extensive than a plateau, having steep walls and a relatively flat top and common in arid and semiarid parts of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico.

---

Mesa ² American  

[may-suh] / ˈmeɪ sə /

noun

1. a city in central Arizona, near Phoenix.

---

mesa British  

/ ˈmeɪsə /

noun

1. a flat tableland with steep edges, common in the southwestern US

---

mesa Scientific  

/ mā′sə /

1. An area of high land with a flat top and two or more steep, clifflike sides. Mesas are larger than buttes and smaller than plateaus, and are common in the southwest United States.

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• mesas
  plural

---

Etymology

Origin of mesa

1750–60, < Spanish: table < Latin mēnsa

---

Explanation

A mesa is a flat-topped hill most commonly found in the Southwest part of the U.S.. Its sides are steep all around so that it looks like a massive table. Mesa comes from the Latin mensa meaning "table," which is very much what a mesa looks like. A mesa is formed when the weaker horizontal rocks around a big formation start to erode and fall away, leaving stronger rocks standing in a flat-topped hill. Grand Mesa in Western Colorado is the largest mesa in the world, with an area of 500 square miles. That's bigger than all of Hong Kong!

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

mesa Mesa mesas

Under the veil of the Manhattan Project, this remote mesa became the site of a profound scientific pivot that ended a world war and ushered in the nuclear age.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026

It has one narrow runway perched high on a mesa with steep cliffs at either end tumbling 1,600 feet to the deep blue Pacific Ocean.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2024

Claudia Mitchell, a potter from Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, gathers clay on a mesa between two sandstone rock formations, hammer and pick at the ready.

From New York Times ● Aug. 13, 2023

It also says the fire sparked by its power line spread quickly because it was on top of a flat mesa, allowing the fire to spread along the ground, and ignited nearby vegetation.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 11, 2023

He spit the shells into the snow below the trail and tried to see into the distance below the mesa, over the edge of the steep trail where her house was.

From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko

In Colorado Springs, Woodmen Valley Chapel, a roughly 10,000-member church, donated more than an acre to the nonprofit Greccio Housing, which built Sunrise at Shiloh Mesa, with 50 apartments for seniors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2026

In Mesa, Arizona, ASU’s school of manufacturing is training around 170 people to become equipment technicians at Taiwanese chip maker TSMC’s fast-growing Arizona plant and plans to increase that number to 800 next year.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 26, 2026

In the last year, the grocer has opened in West Hollywood, Glendale and Thousand Oaks, with outposts in Costa Mesa and downtown Los Angeles locations planned for 2027.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026

Irvine police on Saturday said the wreckage of the car was being stored in a secured tow facility in Costa Mesa that is often contracted by police to store damaged vehicles.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026

Ruess churned out many such letters, which bore the post-marks of the remote settlements through which he passed: Kayenta, Chinle, Lukachukai; Zion Canyon, Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde; Escalante, Rainbow Bridge, Canyon de Chelly.

From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer

Washington, Utah, located just southwest of Zion National Park, is surrounded by cinematic mesas and has long been a hub for exploring the natural wonders of the American west.

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2025

My roughly 60-mile section was marked by sienna-hued mesas and buttes, and cornflower-blue skies.

From New York Times ● May 1, 2024

Gilarya Begaye looks out across the brush-blanketed pastures, red-dirt plains and flat-topped mesas that surround her home in the Navajo Nation.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2024

Several clues, taken together, give away the volcanic nature of the jumble of layered mesas and canyons in this eastern part of Noctis Labyrinthus.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 13, 2024

He took blue pollen and yellow pollen he took tobacco and coral beads; and he walked into the open country below the mesas.

From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---