yam

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an edible starchy tuber of a tropical climbing plant in the genus Dioscorea, or the plant that produces it

   The cook boiled the yam and mashed it with a little palm oil.

2. 2
   noun

   especially in North America: an orange-fleshed sweet potato, which is botanically distinct from a true yam

   The market labeled the orange sweet potatoes as yams.

Recorded in English in the sixteenth century through Portuguese inhame or Spanish igname, from a West African language; compare Fulani nyami, 'to eat,' and Twi anyinam, a kind of yam. American and Jamaican English may also have borrowed the word directly from West African speech. The name was later transferred in the US South to sweet potatoes.

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