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cassava

[ kuh-sah-vuh ]

noun

  1. any of several tropical American plants belonging to the genus Manihot, of the spurge family, as M. esculenta bitter cassava and M. dulcis sweet cassava, cultivated for their tuberous roots, which yield important food products.
  2. a nutritious starch from the roots, the source of tapioca.


cassava

/ kəˈsɑːvə /

noun

  1. Also calledmanioc any tropical euphorbiaceous plant of the genus Manihot, esp the widely cultivated American species M. esculenta (or utilissima ) ( bitter cassava ) and M. dulcis ( sweet cassava )
  2. a starch derived from the root of this plant: an important food in the tropics and a source of tapioca
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of cassava1

First recorded in 1545–55; from Spanish cazabe “cassava bread or meal,” from Taíno caçábi
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Word History and Origins

Origin of cassava1

C16: from Spanish cazabe cassava bread, from Taino caçábi
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Example Sentences

Starchy, versatile, and nearly indestructible in the wild, cassava is one of the world’s most important tubersIn this country, the question of how to round out a meal of meat and vegetables with a starch usually leads straight to the potato.

From Eater

A lack of awareness is undoubtedly a factor, but cassava also finds itself the target of misinformation and even controversy.

From Eater

While cassava has recently become more visible in this country as an ingredient in health-conscious snacks and plant-based food products, it hasn’t quite found its way onto the average American’s dinner table.

From Eater

This year, he expects to incorporate different products — cassava from Brazil and small, sweet peanuts from Equador — and add more dishes from his homeland.

You can walk through recumbent, tin-roofed villages pursued by retinues of uproarious children, then up the sides of extinct craters whose inner slopes have been intensively cultivated so that their bowls overflow with coffee and cassava.

A quick turn at a small stand of banana palms and cassava plants led us to a clearing and, then, back centuries.

When a friend had potato greens for lunch, I traded her some of my cassava leaves.

Sometimes the attacks happen on their way to and from the market or their cassava fields.

Then, a fresh lot of cassava having been procured for the Indians, the journey was resumed.

It happened to be a season of exceptional drought, and cassava, and food of all kinds, were extremely scarce.

When a man of note dies his relations plant a field of cassava; just as the Nicobar Islanders plant a cocoa-nut tree.

They gave him some cassava bread and boiled fish, which he ate voraciously, and soon after left the hut.

It is the root of a shrub called Cassada, or Cassava Jatropha, and in its crude state is highly poisonous.

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Cassatt, MaryCassegrain telescope