An isolated hill or mountain with steep or precipitous sides, usually having a smaller summit area than a mesa
a hill with steep sides and a flat top in the western US (from bute ). (French: "hillock" or "rising ground") Flat-topped hill surrounded by a steep cliff, from the bottom of which a slope descends to the plain. The term is sometimes used for an elevation higher than a hill but not high enough to be a mountain. Buttes topped by horizontal platforms of hard rock are characteristic of the arid plateau region of the western U.S. A butte is similar to a mesa but generally smaller; both are created by erosional processes
A detached low mountain, or high rising abruptly from the general level of the surrounding plain; applied to peculiar elevations in the Rocky Mountain region
A narrow flat-topped hill of resistant rock with very steep sides Probably formerly a mesa