yucca

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   any of a genus of evergreen plants with stiff sword-shaped leaves and tall clusters of white flowers, native chiefly to warm, dry parts of North and Central America

   A flowering yucca stood above the low desert shrubs.

2. 2
   noun

   a sometimes-confused spelling or name for yuca, the edible root of the cassava plant

   The menu used yucca for the fried cassava more conventionally spelled yuca.

New Latin Yucca was taken from Spanish yuca, the Taino-derived name for cassava. Early European botanists confused cassava with the unrelated sword-leaved plants now placed in genus Yucca, fixing the altered spelling and pronunciation for the latter while yuca remains the usual food name.

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