Prairie
noun /ˈprɛːri/ — A vast temperate grassland — flat to the horizon, sky as dominant feature.
Definition
A large open area of grassland, especially the rolling, treeless plains of North America, characterized by grasses and wildflowers and an unbroken horizon.
Beyond the definition
Prairie is a word about horizontality — the deliberate absence of interruption. Writers and painters are drawn to it as a moral condition: the prairie does not deceive you about what is coming. The horizon is always honest.
Origin & history
From French prairie — meadow (from Old French praerie, from Latin pratum: meadow). The French saw these vast American grasslands and named them with the word for their own small meadows — a beautiful inadequacy.
Example sentences
Illustrative sentences for learning, not verified community posts or sourced quotations.
The prairie made her feel legible — no cover, no concealment, just herself against the enormous flat sky.
Willa Cather wrote the prairie as character: not a backdrop but a force with intentions.
There is a particular kind of loneliness available only on the prairie, where the scale of distance becomes visible.
How to use it
This entry uses a noun. Follow the examples for articles and singular or plural forms; not every noun takes “a” or “an.”
Choose “Prairie” when the meaning fits your context: A large open area of grassland, especially the rolling, treeless plains of North America, characterized by grasses and wildflowers and an unbroken horizon.
Synonyms
Antonyms
forest, mountain, canyon
Related words
Word in the Wild
See how this word appears in life, language and stories.
Illustrative sentences and imagined stories for learning — not verified sightings, interviews, or sourced quotations.
Illustrative example
Lions in dry grassland
Three lions resting together in a dry, open, wide-stretching grassland.
The wide, unbroken horizon and open grassy plain represent the characteristics of a prairie, a landscape defined by its vast, rolling, treeless expanse.
Image credit: Benh LIEU SONG · CC BY-SA 3.0 (license)
Resized and converted to WebP; displayed with a fitted crop.
Questions about this word
What does "Prairie" mean?
Prairie is noun meaning: A vast temperate grassland — flat to the horizon, sky as dominant feature.. A large open area of grassland, especially the rolling, treeless plains of North America, characterized by grasses and wildflowers and an unbroken horizon.
Where does the word "Prairie" come from?
From French prairie — meadow (from Old French praerie, from Latin pratum: meadow). The French saw these vast American grasslands and named them with the word for their own small meadows — a beautiful inadequacy.