potato

Pronunciation

• IPA: /pəˈteɪ.toʊ/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish patata,^[2][3][4][5] a variant of Taino batata (“sweet potato”), from the Carib language of Haiti,^[3][2][6] probably influenced by or blended with Spanish papa, potato, from Quechua.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The sweet potato: 1555 in the OED, 1565 in Barnhart and MWU, in Sir John Hawkins' Voyages, the 1560s in Etymonline.^[7][2][5][3]

Semantic evolution

Sweet potatoes were the first to reach Europe, in cultivation in Spain by the mid-16th century,^[3] and the Century Dictionary noted that English writers generally meant them by potato until the mid-17th century.^[3] In the 16th and 17th centuries they were thought to be aphrodisiac,^[7][8] and Word Origins explains Falstaff's let the sky rain potatoes in The Merry Wives of Windsor this way.^[8] The name was extended in 1597 (the 1590s) to the white potato, native to the Pacific slopes of South America,^[7][3] by likeness of the two edible tubers;^[4] it was at first mistakenly called the Virginia potato, by false association with Sir Walter Raleigh.^[3][2] The tuber of the white potato as food is from 1663.^[7] Popular tradition says that John Hawkins introduced it to Ireland in 1565, and that Thomas Herriot brought it to England in 1586.^[3] Anglo-Irish pratie is from 1781.^[7] German Kartoffel is from Italian tartufolo, truffle, and French has pomme de terre, earth-apple.^[3]

Timeline

• 1555 – the sweet potato.^[7]
• 1597 – the white potato.^[7]
• 1663 – its tuber as food.^[7]
• 1781 – Anglo-Irish pratie.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A South American plant (Solanum tuberosum) grown for its starchy edible tubers.
2. The tuber of this plant, cooked and eaten as a vegetable.
3. A sweet potato.

Word family

• tater
• couch potato
• duchess potatoes
• hot potato
• Irish potato
• meat and potatoes
• new potato
• O'Brien potatoes

Related words

• batata
• sweet potato
• spud

Usage notes

The plural is potatoes.^[9] A hot potato is an awkward or delicate matter.^[9]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins