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.

Common collocations

• white yam Adjective + noun

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.

Topics

External links

• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary
• Google Images