prairie

American  

[prair-ee] / ˈprɛər i /

noun

• prairies
  plural

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.

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.

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prairie British  

/ ˈprɛərɪ /

noun

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

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prairie Scientific  

/ prâr′ē /

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

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• prairielike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• prairies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of prairie

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

Explanation

A prairie is a plain of grassy land without many trees. If you're raising cattle, find some prairie land to let them roam around on. Prairie means grassland, and comes from the French word for "meadow." While we might describe a single meadow, we usually use prairie to describe a type of countryside. In the United States, the natural state of the land between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains is prairie, which is why there's so much farming there.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

prairie prairies

Muñoz’s program was bookended by dance scores — Ginastera’s “Four Dances from ‘Estancia’” and Copland’s ballet, “Billy the Kid” — that evoke the prairie and the people in it in both viscerally and spiritually.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2026

Throughout our history, major domestic quarrels have erupted over economics: the prairie rebellion of the 1890s, the Progressive era, the New Deal.

From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026

Moore tried a bison, that shaggy American prairie symbol.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026

Growing up, he planned on leaving the wind-whipped prairie of northern Montana.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026

Its wings spread strong and wide, it flew lazy loops above the prairie.

From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson

Refinery issues in the Great Lakes and the prairies of Canada fed into significant price increases for those two areas, including the states of Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin.

From MarketWatch ● May 1, 2026

Curling was born in Scotland in the early 16th century but grew up centuries later on the Canadian prairies, where the severe weather, rural landscape and boredom provided fertile ground.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2025

The Florida Everglades are a unique environmental region comprising marshes, prairies, forests, mangroves and estuaries.

From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2025

The uprooting of prairies across the Great Plains and the Dust Bowl could not have occurred without the massive settler movement triggered by the Homestead Act of 1862.

From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2025

Deer in the Northeast; alligators in the Everglades; buffalo in the prairies; grasshoppers in the Great Basin; rabbits in California; moose in Alaska: all were pursued by fire.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

Related Words

• meadow
• pasture
• plain
• savanna
• steppe