1750–60, < Spanish: table < Latin mēnsa
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!
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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.
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
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
Later, higher-resolution photographs with fewer shadows showed a pretty plain mesa.
From Scientific American ● May 17, 2023
They had camped on the mesa, at the place and the spring they had used before.
From "Island of the Blue Dolphins" by Scott O'Dell
“It seems the more State Farm tries, the more work it creates for the agent’s office,” said Tom Duffy, a recently retired agent in Mesa, Ariz., who responded to our article.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
In March, a quarantine was placed over La Mesa after multiple Mexican fruit flies were found.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026
Nieves, then living in Costa Mesa with his wife, Katie, created the Orange County Dads club in October 2023.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2026
They live in a two-bedroom home in Mesa, Ariz., and pay for flights and accommodations when their kids and grandkids come to visit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
Onofre’s other duties included being the chief procurer of the stand’s beef, which he bought mainly from the hippies at the Evening Star commune on Strawberry Mesa.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
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
The central summit area is marked by several elevated mesas forming an arc, reaching a regional high and sloping downhill away from the summit area.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 13, 2024
The pair once spent a week combing brushy hills and mesas in the Grapevine Mountains on the eastern edges of Death Valley in hopes of spotting an elusive and rarely seen gray vireo.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2023
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
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.
