yam
IPA: jˈæm
noun
- Any climbing vine of the genus Dioscorea in the Eastern and Western hemispheres, usually cultivated.
- The edible, starchy, tuberous root of that plant, a tropical staple food.
- (US) A sweet potato; a tuber from the species Ipomoea batatas.
- (Scotland) A potato.
- (New Zealand) A oca; a tuber from the species Oxalis tuberosa.
- (Malaysia, Singapore) Taro.
- An orange-brown colour, like the flesh of the yam.
- (regional, Cumberland) Home.
- A surname.
verb
- (UK, nonstandard, slang) To eat.
- (especially basketball) To dunk on; to beat humiliatingly.
- Pronunciation spelling of am.
Examples of "yam" in Sentences
- You no let cutty my Foot, so me no let cutty your Head; no be sadd, you have _bumby grande * yam yam_.
- The use of the word yam to refer to the orange one is at least as interesting an illustration of linguistic change as the retronyms you cite.
- The eater then blows up the steam from the hot yam, and afterwards pokes the whole into his mouth, and says, I thank God for being permitted to eat the new yam; he then begins to chew it heartily, with fish likewise.
- I guess that the term yam, as misapplied by growers and marketers of sweetpotatoes in the southern states, may have had its origin in the similar shapes of the roots of sweetpotatoes and the tubers another basic botanical difference of yams, the latter having been familiar to slaves from Africa.