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• plateau
  plateau

  noun

  a land area having a relatively level surface considerably raised above adjoining land on at least one side, and often cut by deep canyons.
• Plateau
  Plateau

  noun

  a state of central Nigeria, formed in 1976 from part of Benue-Plateau State: tin mining. Capital: Jos. Pop: 3 178 712 (2006). Area: 30 913 sq km (11 936 sq miles)

plateau

American  

[pla-toh, plat-oh] / plæˈtoʊ, ˈplæt oʊ /

noun

• plateaus,
  plural
• plateaux
  plural

1. a land area having a relatively level surface considerably raised above adjoining land on at least one side, and often cut by deep canyons.

2. a period or state of little or no growth or decline.

   to reach a plateau in one's career.

3. Psychology. a period of little or no apparent progress in an individual's learning, marked by an inability to increase speed, reduce number of errors, etc., and indicated by a horizontal stretch in a learning curve or graph.

4. a flat stand, as for a centerpiece, sometimes extending the full length of a table.

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verb (used without object)

plateaued, plateauing

1. to reach a state or level of little or no growth or decline, especially to stop increasing or progressing; remain at a stable level of achievement; level off.

   After a period of uninterrupted growth, sales began to plateau.

verb (used with object)

plateaued, plateauing

1. to cause to remain at a stable level, especially to prevent from rising or progressing.

   Rising inflation plateaued sales income.

plateau ¹ British  

/ ˈplætəʊ /

noun

1. a wide mainly level area of elevated land

2. a relatively long period of stability; levelling off

   the rising prices reached a plateau

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verb

1. to remain at a stable level for a relatively long period

Plateau ² British  

/ ˈplætəʊ /

noun

1. a state of central Nigeria, formed in 1976 from part of Benue-Plateau State: tin mining. Capital: Jos. Pop: 3 178 712 (2006). Area: 30 913 sq km (11 936 sq miles)

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plateau Scientific  

/ plă-tō′ /

1. An elevated, comparatively level expanse of land. Plateaus make up about 45 percent of the Earth's land surface.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• plateaus
  plural
• plateaux
  plural

Etymology

Origin of plateau

1785–95; < French; Old French platel flat object, diminutive of plat plate ¹

Explanation

A plateau is a high, flat area of land. The word has also been stretched to include a leveling off of progress. At first the children at the sleepover were running wild, but then their energy level reached a plateau. You can see the word plate inside plateau. Think flat like a plate, or think about mountains that look like tables you could set with plates — so flat the plates won't fall off. If you're a French speaker, this will be easier, as plateau derives from the French plat, "level."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

plateau Plateau plateaus plateaux plateaued plateauing

The northwestern part of Motte Rimrock Reserve, a biological field station on a rocky plateau managed by UC Riverside, also falls in an evacuation warning zone.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 25, 2026

Tibetans view swaths of China as their homeland, including the county of Kardze in Sichuan province on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau where Lobga was born.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

Jacob had a meteoric climb from being an unranked university student in 2024 to the world's top 50 a year later - but he has recently hit a plateau.

From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026

One day the pioneers who had planted the first trees on the windswept coastal plateau discovered huge gashes in the rich vegetation.

From Barron's ● Jun. 25, 2026

Directly ahead, a steep cobblestone staircase at the edge of the runway led up to a grand, floodlit mansion constructed on a plateau near the base of the mountain range.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

The flash flood, which began about 2:30 pm on Saturday, was caused by rainfall on the Kaibab Plateau, it said.

From Barron's ● Aug. 30, 2026

These formations are widespread across Utah's Wasatch and Uinta ranges and can also be found on the Colorado Plateau in the La Sal Mountains near Moab.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 28, 2026

A Christmas market has taken place on St George's Plateau in Liverpool for a decade.

From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026

He thinks that companies have skipped to the next phase of the cycle, the Slope of Enlightenment, which is the step that occurs before the Plateau of Productivity.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026

He crossed the Columbia River on a narrow steel span and climbed out of the river’s gorge to the gently rolling wheat fields of the Columbia Plateau.

From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown

At CERAWeek, ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance said providing new oil supply as shale plateaus is one of the industry’s big challenges.

From Barron's ● Mar. 28, 2026

Not with another four years on his contract, a current buyout price of $22.5 million and now a not-terrible finish to this strange season of all peaks and valleys and no plateaus.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 8, 2026

These flat regions, known as plateaus, turned out to be universal.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 1, 2026

“Free cash flow per share grows even as revenue plateaus or declines slightly. The companies that execute this transition well are going to emerge as leaner, more profitable versions of themselves,” he says.

From MarketWatch ● Feb. 25, 2026

She had been collecting these plants her entire life, and some of them were deliciously exotic: saffron from the high plateaus of Persia, rhubarb-currant from the Caucasus Mountains, and ginger from the Far East.

From Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack

Connecting the realms, Martine sells crepes in the summer to members of the communes, who venture down from their fields and plateaux for this staple of French cuisine.

From BBC ● Dec. 16, 2023

Currently, it expects wage growth to plateaux around 3.9% late next year and into 2024.

From Reuters ● Nov. 16, 2022

As to the poets who made it into Dear World, there are predictable highs, plateaux and crescendi.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 12, 2013

But with the new edition opening to just $21.5 million — less than either of the previous sequels, in real or inflated dollars — it will have trouble reaching those plateaux.

From Time ● Apr. 8, 2012

Like the Orange Free State, the Transvaal is an elevated pastoral plateau, or series of plateaux, broken by low ranges of hills.

From The World and Its People: Book VII Views in Africa by Anna B. Badlam

It made sense for his family at the time because his wife’s business was growing, while he felt his career in content marketing had plateaued.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 23, 2026

And that has happened even as Tesla's car production numbers have plateaued.

From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026

A spokeswoman for Novo Nordisk, maker of Wegovy, said its clinical trial program showed patients’ weight plateaued about 60 weeks after treatment started.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 16, 2026

The donors who’ve been forking it over are questioning whether Cornyn has plateaued.

From Slate ● Mar. 2, 2026

My stock plummeted, and by high school, it plateaued.

From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi

The argument wasn’t anything new, and it certainly wasn’t influenced by plateauing sales or consumer complaints.

From Salon ● Jun. 14, 2026

With repetition, they got faster until plateauing, which he thinks was when the sorting task became automated.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

With pandemic-era stimulus initiatives long forgotten, home prices plateauing, and investor portfolios pointing down, consumer sentiment has little reason to improve.

From Barron's ● Apr. 2, 2026

The elimination of the credits is expected to further stunt EV sales that have already slowed amid plateauing interest in California and steep auto tariffs.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2025

"In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we've actually seen, to some extent, a plateauing in the number of mpox cases, but collectively, it still is a very significantly affected country globally," he said.

From BBC ● Nov. 22, 2024

Related Words

• elevation
• highland
• plain