prairie
[prair-ee]
- an extensive, level or slightly undulating, mostly treeless tract of land in the Mississippi valley, characterized by a highly fertile soil and originally covered with coarse grasses, and merging into drier plateaus in the west.Compare pampas, savanna, steppe.
- a tract of grassland; meadow.
- (in Florida) a low, sandy tract of grassland often covered with water.
- Southern U.S. wet grassland; marsh.
- (initial capital letter) a steam locomotive having a two-wheeled front truck, six driving wheels, and a two-wheeled rear truck.
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Origin of prairie
1675–85; < French: meadow < Vulgar Latin *prātāria, equivalent to Latin prāt(um) meadow + -āria, feminine of -ārius -ary
Prairie, The
- a historical novel (1827) by James Fenimore Cooper.
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Compare Leather-Stocking Tales.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for prairie
Contemporary Examples
He stands, one assumes on a porch, which overlooks a prairie.
One year later and 10 blocks away, my mother came into the world, the granddaughter of those pioneers who had roamed the prairie.
There, abandoned “ghost towns” populate the prairie fields and deserts, serving as a reminder of a not-so-distant past.
Because there is always this about the land, about prairie and pond and mountain: they never go away.
But this hardscrabble, prairie town, with its population of 5,000 people, cast its charm on Ballantine.
Historical Examples
He was clad in a civilian costume, which pronouncedly smacked of the prairie.
The Law-BreakersRidgwell Cullum
Her eyes took him in from his prairie hat to his well-booted feet.
The Law-BreakersRidgwell Cullum
Stanley Fyles was as nearly a perfect horseman as the prairie could produce.
The Law-BreakersRidgwell Cullum
He is a zoological fact, with his parallel in every herd of prairie dogs.
Shelley, Godwin and Their CircleH. N. Brailsford
In a month he would pass from the prairie to university life.
A Breath of Prairie and other storiesWill Lillibridge
prairie
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Word Origin
C18: from French, from Old French praierie, from Latin prātum meadow
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for prairie
n.
tract of level or undulating grassland in North America, by 1773, from French prairie "meadow, grassland," from Old French praerie "meadow, pastureland" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *prataria, from Latin pratum "meadow," originally "a hollow." The word existed in Middle English as prayere, but was lost and reborrowed to describe the American plains. Prairie dog is attested from 1774; prairie schooner "immigrant's wagon" is from 1841. Illinois has been the Prairie State since at least 1861. In Latin, Neptunia prata was poetic for "the sea."
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
prairie
[prâr′ē]
- An extensive area of flat or rolling grassland, especially the large plain of central North America.
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The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.