cuestan.

1818 in Amer. State Papers (For. Relat.) (1834) IV. 298 A high ridge or mountain surrounds them all; and a cuesta..more or less rugged and precipitous.

1854 W. L. Herndon Explor. Valley of Amazon i. 96 The road..ascends a steep and rugged ‘cuesta’.

1896 National Geographic Mag. 7 294 The plains belong to four great topographic categories, which in the rich Spanish nomenclature of the region may be termed mesas, bolsons, plazas, and cuestas (including bajadas)... Cuestas and bajadas are inclined plains, which can also be classed as declivities.

1899 W. M. Davis in Proc. Geologists' Assoc. 1899–1900 (1900) 16 76 The outer slope is so gentle that its inclination is hardly noticeable. Such an upland may be called a ‘cuesta’.

1899 W. M. Davis in Proc. Geologists' Assoc. 1899–1900 (1900) 16 77 Finding no name in use for the forms here considered, I have..advocated the general adoption of the term cuesta... By the same natural extension of the original meaning that makes mesa apply to the whole of a tabular elevation, instead of only to its upper surface, cuesta may be made to apply to the entire body of the unsymmetrical linear elevation that is characteristic of certain denuded coastal plains.

1901 Jrnl. School Geogr. Oct. 295 This is just at the cuesta-like escarpment.

1939 Geogr. Jrnl. 94 414 The Chiltern Hills are a simple chalk cuesta.

1941 C. A. Cotton Landscape x. 94 Homoclinal ridges grade into cuestas, which are developed on escarpment-forming strata of very gentle inclination.

1963 D. W. Humphries & E. E. Humphries tr. H. Termier & G. Termier Erosion & Sedimentation iii. 66 It is sometimes difficult to distinguish these cliffs from nonmarine cuestas.

1970 R. J. Small Study of Landforms iii. 75 The most important landforms of such scarp-and-vale scenery are, of course, the cuestas themselves.