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plateau

UK/ˈplætəʊ/US/plæˈtoʊ/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,200 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: plateaus

A plateau is a high, wide stretch of flat land. The Tibetan plateau, cross the plateau, reach a plateau.

The figurative sense is now at least as common: to reach a plateau is to stop improving, which is what happens to almost any skill after the early gains. The plural can be plateaus or plateaux, and both are correct in English.

Unknown · Public domain

Definitions of plateau

  1. 1nounplateauA high, wide stretch of flat land.B2+

    “The road climbed steeply before crossing a wide, windy plateau.”

plateau is a landform.

Also accepted in games: tableland

Where it comes from

French plateau means a flat thing, a diminutive of plat, flat. Plate and platter are relatives.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *pleth₂-

  2. French

    plateau

  3. English, today

    plateau

Built from

  • plat · French — a plate

French plateau, diminutive of plat (“a plate”); see plate. a doublet of platter.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Nature & Weather

Practise this word

plateau in the wild

  • The plateau, especially its southeast portion, is also known as the Texas Hill Country.

    Edwards Plateau

  • The Iranian plateau or Persian plateau is a geological feature spanning parts of Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia, and the South Caucasus.

    Iranian plateau

  • The Piedmont ( PEED-mont) is a plateau region located in the Eastern United States.

    Piedmont (plateau)

  • The plateau covers most of the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Telangana, excluding their coastal regions, and includes minor portions of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

    Deccan Plateau

  • The plateau is marked by rocky terrain with an average elevation of about 600 m.

    Deccan Plateau

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

the plat family

platform

plateau — used about once every 5,793 pages · #10,200 · point at the bar for the others