butte

B3U1T1T1E1
/ˈbjuːt/Southern US/ˈbʌt/

noun

An isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top.

OriginFrench butte ← West Germanic →
Less commonScrabble 7
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Meanings

butte1

nounbutte (plural buttes)

plural buttes

  1. USAn isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top.

    Then he set his course straight for a butte called Where the Eagles Rest.

    1951, Dorothy M. Johnson, Warrior's Exile; in Indian Country, London: Corgi, 1961, page 64
    1 more example

    Those multitoned buttes and mesas [of the Grand Canyon], and that incandescent sequence of colorful bands that make one of the natural wonders of the world so grand, can also be found over 100 million miles away [on Mars].

    2013 November 27, John Grotzinger, “The world of Mars”, in The New York Times

Butte2

proper nounButte (countable and uncountable, plural Buttes)

plural Buttes

  1. countableA surname.
  2. A placename
    1. countableuncountableA census-designated place in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Alaska, United States.
    2. countableuncountableA city, the county seat of Silver Bow County, Montana, United States, with which it is a consolidated city-county known as Butte-Silver Bow.
    3. countableuncountableA village, the county seat of Boyd County, Nebraska, United States.
    4. countableuncountableA city and village in McLean County, North Dakota, United States.

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see
table mountain

Origin

butte · noun

  1. West Germanic
  2. Frenchbutte“mound”
  3. Englishbutte

PIE word *bʰudʰmḗn Borrowed from French butte (“mound”). Related to butt via a West Germanic cognate.

More words from French, West Germanic

Full word history & related roots →

Butte · proper noun

Perhaps a variant spelling of Butt.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Arabic شاهد صخري
  • شاهد صخريhill
Catalan mola
  • molahill
Danish butte
  • buttehill
Finnish butte
  • buttehill
French butte, gour
  • buttehill
  • gourhill
German Härtling
  • Härtlinghill
Irish buta
  • butahill
Italian butte, tacco
  • buttehill
  • taccohill
Portuguese planalto
  • planaltohill
Russian холм с крутыми склонами, остане́ц
  • холм с крутыми склонами (xolm s krutymi sklonami)hill
  • остане́ц (ostanéc)hill
Spanish cuello volcánico, otero
  • cuello volcánicohill
  • oterohill
  • páramohill
Thai เนินยอดป้าน
  • เนินยอดป้านhill
Turkish tanık tepe
  • tanık tepehill

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with butte

suiteminuterouteutcuteshootdisputeacutesubstitutepursuitqtcomputerecruitfluterebootmuteBeirutsalutecommutebrutelootmootnewttut
All rhymes →

Sounds the same

beaut
Cite this entry
APA

butte. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/butte

MLA

“butte.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/butte. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “butte,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/butte.

Source: butte on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.