mesquite

Syllables: mes·quite/mɛsˈkiːt/

mesquite noun: any of several deciduous trees of the genus Prosopis found in America, and used as forage, which have long, beige seed and bean pods which may be dried and ground into a sweet, nutty flour.

Image: Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

mesquite (plural mesquites)

Any of several deciduous trees of the genus Prosopis found in America, and used as forage, which have long, beige seed and bean pods which may be dried and ground into a sweet, nutty flour.
- Between these canyons the river has a low but rather narrow flood plain, with cottonwood groves scattered here and there, and a chaparral of mesquite bearing beans and thorns.1895, J[ohn] W[esley] Powell, chapter I, in Canyons of the Colorado, Meadville, PA: Flood & Vincent; republished as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, New York: Dover, 1961...
- […] and no botanist could for a moment fail to recognize this fact, especially as just beyond its banks there is growing on every hand the mesquite, the everywhere-present species of the Lower Sonoran zone.1909, Volney Morgan Spalding, Distribution and movements of desert plants
The wood of these trees, used for smoking food, or charcoal made from this wood.
Country or land dominated by mesquite trees.
- Tucson is situated in beautiful mesquite riverbed country, overlooked by the snowy Catalina range.1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC
- Southward and in the very center of the plain is La Mesa, hidden in the mesquite and with splendid, typically dug, wells.1900, David Prescott Barrows, The ethno-botany of the Coahuilla Indians of Southern California

Proper noun capitalized: Mesquite

Mesquite

An unincorporated community in Imperial County, California.
A city in Clark County, Nevada.
A census-designated place in New Mexico.
A city in Dallas County and Kaufman County, Texas; a suburb of Dallas.
A ghost town in Borden County, Texas.

mesquite meaning in Tamil

mesquite in Tamil

சீமைக்கருவேல் வேலிக்கருவேல்

Examples of mesquite in a sentence

In Lubbock, where Sarah lived, there weren't any trees, just tumbleweeds and scrabbly old mesquite bushes.
In the Panhandle Area, bison eat browse that includes mesquite and elm.
Mesquite can be used for several purposes, but generally other sources have been more desirable and cheaper.

All 16 example sentences with mesquite

Forms of mesquite

plural	mesquites
alternative form (dated)	mesquit
alternative form (obsolete)	mezquit
alternative form (obsolete)	mezquite

Origin of mesquite

Borrowed from Spanish mezquite, mizquite, from Nahuatl mizquitl (“the mesquite tree”).

Phrases with mesquite

1 more phrasesFewer phrases

mesquite webworm moths

Questions about mesquite

What does mesquite mean?: Mesquite means any of several deciduous trees of the genus Prosopis found in America, and used as forage, which have long, beige seed and bean pods which may be dried and ground into a sweet, nutty flour.
What is mesquite in Tamil?: Mesquite in Tamil is சீமைக்கருவேல் வேலிக்கருவேல். See Mesquite meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is mesquite?: Mesquite can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce mesquite?: Mesquite is pronounced /mɛsˈkiːt/.
What is the plural of mesquite?: The plural of mesquite is mesquites.

Words near mesquite in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: mesquite (page history and authors); Mesquite (page history and authors); Mesquite (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-mesquite.wav.

Cite this entry: “mesquite.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mesquite. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.