Etymologically
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mesa

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈmeɪ.sə/, /ˈmɛ.sə/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish mesa (“plateau; literally, table”),[2][3][4][5] from Latin mēnsa (“table”).[5][2][3][6] The Spanish word is recorded for a table from the 10th century and for a high, flat plateau from 1581.[5] The Latin noun meant a table for sacred offerings or for meals;[2] Etymonline, following de Vaan, explains it as probably the feminine of mēnsus (“measured”), the past participle of mētior (“to measure”), and compares Umbrian mefa, a sacrificial object, perhaps a cake, so that in Latin the name would have passed from the offering to the table it lay on.[2] Barnhart calls the Latin word of uncertain origin.[3] Partridge notes that its Spanish diminutive meseta was also taken into English.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A high, flat tableland with steep sides, in the American Southwest: 1759, in a translation of a book on the natural history of Spanish colonial California.[3][2] The OED and Merriam-Webster date it from 1840, in Gregg's diary,[5][4] and the Shorter Oxford notes that it was first used in the names of particular hills and plateaux.[6]

Semantic evolution

The word began as an American English term for the flat-topped hills of the Southwest.[3][6][8] Geologists distinguish a mesa, usually larger in area, from a butte;[4] it can also mean a broad terrace with an abrupt slope along a river.[4] In electronics, from 1958, a mesa is a raised, flat-topped part of the semiconductor in some transistors and diodes, as in mesa transistor.[5][6]

Timeline

  • 1759 – a flat-topped tableland, in a translation of a book on California.[3][2]
  • 1840 – first date in the OED and Merriam-Webster.[5][4]
  • 1958 – electronics: a raised part of a semiconductor.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An isolated hill or plateau with a flat top and steep sides, common in the southwestern United States: The trail climbed to the top of the mesa.[8][4][5]
  2. A broad terrace with a steep slope on one side, as along a river.[4]
  3. (electronics) A raised, flat-topped part of the semiconductor in some transistors and diodes.[5][6]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins