yam

Etymology

It is borrowed from Portuguese inhame or Spanish igname, also iñame, now ñame,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} the Portuguese form cited by Clusius in 1567 and the Spanish by Scaliger in 1557; French igname comes from the Spanish.^[2] The English spelling settled as yam in the 17th century.^[2][3][1] The OED calls the ultimate origin uncertain,^[2] and Hoad unknown,^[7] but most dictionaries take the word to be of West African origin.^{[3][4][5][6][8][9]} They compare Fula nyami (“to eat”),^{[3][4][5][6][10][11]} and the American Heritage Dictionary names Wolof ñam (“food, to eat”) and Bambara ñambu (“manioc”);^[9] Wiktionary instead derives it from ñàmbi (“cassava”) or a related word.^[1] The American Heritage Dictionary sees a Portuguese and English creole verb meaning to eat between the African words and the Portuguese and Spanish ones.^[9] Barnhart and Etymonline think the word in American and Jamaican English was probably borrowed again directly from West African languages,^[3][4] and Barnhart notes Jamaican Creole nyaams, yam, beside older Jamaican forms for to eat and food.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The edible root, in foreign forms: an English text of 1588 calls it Inany, a fruit like a turnip but very sweet,^[2] and Barnhart also records nname in 1588.^[3] Etymonline dates the word, as igname, to the 1580s,^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1580–90.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Early English writers took the word over in the forms of the languages they read: iniamo in 1598, igname in 1600 and inhame in 1640.^[3] The spelling yam is first recorded in 1657, in Ligon's history of Barbados,^[2][5][1] or in 1697 according to Barnhart.^[3] The name was later given to other starchy roots: in the southern United States it came to mean a kind of sweet potato (about 1775),^[2][4][13] and in Scotland a coarse variety of the common potato, a use that an Edinburgh writer of 1715 already called improper.^[14][2] In Caribbean speech and in English cant the word also meant food (1788), and the verb yam, to eat heartily, is recorded from 1725;^[2][15] the OED derives the verb through West Indian speech from West African words for meat and eating, ultimately the same word as the noun.^[2] In northern English and Lincolnshire dialect yam was to eat greedily and noisily.^[14]

Timeline

• 1588 – the root, in foreign forms such as inany and nname.^[2][3]
• 1600 – the form igname.^[3]
• 1657 – the spelling yam, for the starchy root of species of Dioscorea.^[2][5]
• 1715 – in Scotland, a coarse variety of the common potato.^[14] The OED's first record of this sense is from 1803.^[2]
• 1725 – verb, to eat heartily, in a canting dictionary.^[2][15]
• c. 1775 – in the United States, a variety of sweet potato.^[2]
• 1788 – food, in an account of Jamaica.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The starchy tuberous root of various tropical plants of the genus Dioscorea, eaten as a staple food: She served fried yam with the fish.^{[5][13][2][9]}
2. Any of these climbing plants.^[13][5][9]
3. (Southern US) A sweet potato, especially one with moist orange flesh.^[13][5][9]
4. (Scotland) A potato.^{[13][5][2][14]}
5. (slang) Food.^[2][15]

Verb

1. (slang) To eat, especially heartily or with relish.^[2][15]

Word family

• cocoyam
• wild yam

Related words

• sweet potato

Usage notes

The OED and the Shorter Oxford record an unrelated obsolete noun yam, a posting house in Russia (1587–1801), a borrowing from Russian, ultimately from a Persian word for a post-horse.^[2][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com