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• 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  

[mey-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.

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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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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 continued north, looking to the yellows and the orange of the sandrock cliffs ahead, and to the narrow sandrock canyons that cut deep into the mesa, exposing the springs.

From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko

KimMarie Johnson-Roussell, president of the Park Mesa Heights Community Council, said the council had meetings with developers prior to the project’s approval.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026

“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

The California City facility contract expires in August 2027 and the Otay Mesa facility contract expires in December 2029, with the option to extend for five more years.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026

In March, a quarantine was placed over La Mesa after multiple Mexican fruit flies were found.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2026

A little past the Body Shop and Pipe Queen he turned right onto Strawberry Mesa, bouncing over a maze of rutted roads to the Evening Star hippie commune.

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

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

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 territory is a varied desert landscape — mountains and canyons, sand dunes and mesas, Joshua tree forests and volcanic cinder cones — and features about 10,000 threatened desert tortoise within its boundaries.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 1, 2023

He stumbled and ran behind the sun, not following but dragged with it across arroyos, over mesas and hills.

From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko