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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

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

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

From Seattle Times • Feb. 22, 2024

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

Later, higher-resolution photographs with fewer shadows showed a pretty plain mesa.

From Scientific American • May 17, 2023

Archival footage of the park’s 1971 inauguration shows the first lady disturbed by fence on the mesa and asking that it be taken down so she could hug and shake hands with people in Mexico.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 27, 2023

All alone, outside the pueblo, on the bare plain of the mesa.

From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley