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View synonyms for prairie

prairie

[ prair-ee ]

noun

  1. 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.
  2. a tract of grassland; meadow.
  3. (in Florida) a low, sandy tract of grassland often covered with water.
  4. Southern U.S. wet grassland; marsh.
  5. (initial capital letter) a steam locomotive having a two-wheeled front truck, six driving wheels, and a two-wheeled rear truck.


prairie

/ ˈprɛərɪ /

noun

  1. often plural a treeless grassy plain of the central US and S Canada Compare pampas steppe savanna
“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


prairie

/ prârē /

  1. An extensive area of flat or rolling grassland, especially the large plain of central North America.


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Other Words From

  • prairie·like adjective
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Word History and Origins

Origin of prairie1

1675–85; < French: meadow < Vulgar Latin *prātāria, equivalent to Latin prāt ( um ) meadow + -āria, feminine of -ārius -ary
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Word History and Origins

Origin of prairie1

C18: from French, from Old French praierie, from Latin prātum meadow
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Example Sentences

These underwater prairies also support near-shore and offshore fisheries, and protect coastlines as well as other marine habitats.

The journey took them through Ohio to Illinois, across the prairie, then south toward the deserts.

That has put prairies in danger, as people have plowed under many grasslands to grow crops.

There, prairies stretch from the area east of the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River.

Usually, when scientists talk about prairies, they are referring to the grasslands in North America.

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.

Harvey now lives in the central prairie province of Saskatchewan, Canadian news reports say, along with her husband and son.

Because there is always this about the land, about prairie and pond and mountain: they never go away.

This, thought I, is a dismal-looking outcome—two men and a dead horse left high and dry on the sun-flooded prairie.

Not while I had the open prairie underfoot and the summer sky above, and hands to strike a blow or pull a trigger.

"We'll be blamed lucky if we don't run into a prairie-fire before mornin'," Piegan grumbled.

One company also has irrigation works, and ready-made farms for settlers in the prairie provinces.

The sergeant went out, and when the beat of hoofs sank into the silence of the prairie, Winston called Courthorne in.

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Prairialprairie breaker