mesa
/ˈmeɪ.sə/noun
mesa is spelled M-E-S-A: 4 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 3.2 times per million words in written English, the 14,928th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, mesa means “A flat area of land or plateau higher than other land, with one or more clifflike edges” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of mesa is mesas.
How many letters and syllables are in mesa?
| Letters | 4: M-E-S-A |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.2 times per million words; the 14,928th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is mesa?
Mesa appears 3.2 times per million words in written English, the 14,928th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce mesa?
- US /ˈmeɪ.sə/
- US /ˈmɛ.sə/
Mesa has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-mesa.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with mesa?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as mesa (/eɪsə/).
Spelled with the same letters in another order: same, seam, sema, mase.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of mesa
- mesas plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does mesa mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A flat area of land or plateau higher than other land, with one or more clifflike edges.
A few more miles of hot sand and gravel and red stone brought us around a low mesa to the Little Colorado River.
- 2
a structure with components rising above the insulating substrate that surrounds it
The ohmic contacts were deposited at the edge of the mesa.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Mesa in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense flat area of land:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does mesa come from?
First attested 1759, from Spanish mesa (“table”), from Latin mēnsa. Doublet of mensa.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).