- Butte (Wikipedia)
In geomorphology, a butte (/bjuËt/ BEWT) is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and tablelands. The word butte comes from the French word butte (French: ), meaning ‘knoll’ (of any size); its use is prevalent in the Western United States, including the Southwest, where mesa (Spanish for ’table’) is used for the larger landform.