mesa

¹ American  

[mey-suh] / ˈmeɪ sə /

noun

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.

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Mesa ² American  

[mey-suh] / ˈmeɪ sə /

noun

1. a city in central Arizona, near Phoenix.

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mesa British  

/ ˈmeɪsə /

noun

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

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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.

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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

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

The area around the mesa is rugged, quiet and vast, and water has to be hauled in.

From Seattle Times • Feb. 22, 2024

The cultural significance of this place isn’t evident to many, even though the mesa, which is about 12 acres, has long been mired in land-use battles.

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 10, 2023

Para personas como Solis, sin embargo, un dólar con menos poder adquisitivo es la diferencia entre llevar comida a la mesa o no.

From New York Times • Jul. 31, 2023

He had believed that on certain nights, when the moon rose full and wide as a corner of the sky, a person standing on the high sandstone cliff of that mesa could reach the moon.

From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko