Etymograph

English

mesa

Mesa comes from Spanish mesa ‘table’, and goes back to Latin mēnsa.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmēnsa‘a table’
  2. Late Latinmodernmēsa
  3. Old Spanishc. 950–1500mesa
  4. Spanishc. 1500–presentsame form‘table’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1895same form

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEmēnsa‘a table’
  2. Late Latinmodernmēsa
  3. Old Spanishc. 950–1500mesa
  4. Spanishc. 1500–presentsame form‘table’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1895same form

Earliest quotation: 1895, John Wesley Powell, Meadville: “Low mesas, dry, treeless, stretch back from the brink…”

first attested First attested 1759, from Spanish mesa (“table”), from Latin mēnsa (as stated in the etymology)

The story

First attested 1759, from Spanish mesa (‘table’), from Latin mēnsa.

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *meh₁- ‘to measure’

month, moon, moral, meal, sunny, meter, moody, metric, metre, meta, menstrual, asymmetry, madder, metrology, firman, mete, metis, metra, moodiness, menses, 62 more

through Proto-Italic *mētis

dimensionless, 18 more

through Latin mētior ‘to measure’

measure, dimensional, dimension, commensurate, 19 more

through Latin mēnsus ‘measured’

immense, commensal, 4 more

through Latin mēnsa ‘a table’

mensa, 5 more

Today it means

noun A flat area of land or plateau higher than other land, with one or more clifflike edges.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Latin mēnsa / mesa

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