Word.ws English Dictionary

coteau

Syllables: co·teauUS/kəˈtoʊ/

coteau noun: a hilly upland including the divide between two valleys.

coteau: a hilly upland including the divide between two valleys
Image: USFWS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

coteau (plural coteaus or coteaux)

  1. (Canada, US) A hilly upland including the divide between two valleys.
    • It happened when he was a tiny boy standing at the edge of a prairie coteau. From that place, he saw the buffalo trudging out of the horizon on one side of the world.2020, Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman, Corsair (2021), page 267
  2. (Canada, US) The side of a valley.

Forms of coteau

pluralcoteaus
pluralcoteaux
alternative form (rare)côteau

Origin of coteau

From French coteau, from Old French costel, from Latin costa (“rib, side”).

Questions about coteau

What does coteau mean?
Coteau means a hilly upland including the divide between two valleys.
What part of speech is coteau?
Coteau is a noun.
How do you pronounce coteau?
Coteau is pronounced /kəˈtoʊ/ (US).
What is the plural of coteau?
The plural of coteau is coteaus.

Words near coteau in the dictionary

  1. coteach
  2. coteacher
  3. coteachers
  4. coteaches
  5. coteaching
  6. coteau
  7. Coteau-du-Lac
  8. coteaus
  9. coteaux
  10. cotechini
  11. cotechino

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coteau (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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