prairie

noun, often attributive prai·rie \ ˈprer-ē \

|Updated on: 3 Aug 2018

Definition of prairie

1 : land in or predominantly in grass

2 : a tract of grassland: such as

a : a large area of level or rolling land in the Mississippi River valley that in its natural uncultivated state usually has deep fertile soil, a cover of tall coarse grasses, and few trees

b : one of the dry treeless plateaus east of the Rocky Mountains that merge on their east side with the prairies proper and are characterized by shorter grasses and drier less fertile soil

See prairie defined for English-language learners

See prairie defined for kids

Examples of prairie in a Sentence

Millions of buffalo once roamed the prairies.
The train tracks extend over miles of prairie.

Recent Examples of prairie from the Web

Although eastern Kentucky’s coal-rich mountains were covered in forest, the western part of the state once hosted three million acres of prairie—before European settlers dug it up for farmland.

— leslie nemo, Scientific American, "From Defiled to Wild—Can a Spent Coal Mine Be Reborn as a Nature Conservation Center?," 11 July 2018
The grasses glowed green and yellow, even pinkish, a vast coastal prairie ablaze in the afternoon sun.

— jenna russell, BostonGlobe.com, "There is magic in those Jekyll Island oaks," 21 June 2018
The family and several neighbors watched the tornado churn across a rolling prairie and into the mountains, missing their house by under a mile.

— Fox News, "Onlookers ogle Wyoming tornado that damages handful of homes," 7 June 2018
South of Ciudad Juárez and its dusty belt of low-wage factories, Chihuahua is cowboy country—a wide-open place of vast prairies and forested mountains.

— jon lee anderson, The New Yorker, "A New Revolution in Mexico," 25 June 2012
Two brass howitzers had been carried off a ship to a prairie near Fort Nisqually.

— erik lacitis, The Seattle Times, "‘All indulged’: Puget Sound’s wildest Fourth of July party was its first one — in 1841," 3 July 2018
He and his father together till about 2,500 acres of the fertile prairie that stretches from Ohio through Nebraska.

— james b. stewart, New York Times, "Why Trump Might Cave to China: Iowa Soybean Farmers," 7 June 2018
On your way from the city, stop at the Nachusa Grasslands, a 3,600-acre spread of natural prairie restored by national nonrprofit the Nature Conservancy over the last three decades.

— ted cox, Chicago Reader, "Leave the flatlands behind in Savanna and Galena, along the bluffs of the mighty Mississippi," 30 May 2018
Taking advantage of a new Elgin ordinance that allows beekeeping, the hospital has added two honeybee hives to the natural prairie portion of its community garden as a means of not only producing honey but also encouraging bee pollination of plants.

— mike danahey, Elgin Courier-News, "Sherman Hospital adds beehives to its community garden," 2 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'prairie.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.