sweet potato

noun

a plant, Ipomoea batatas, of the morning glory family, grown for its sweet, edible, tuberous roots.

the root itself, used as a vegetable.

Informal. ocarina.

Words nearby sweet potato

sweet on, be, sweet orange, sweet pea, sweet pepper, sweet pepperbush, sweet potato, sweet roll, sweet scabious, sweet shop, sweet shrub, sweet sorghum

Origin of sweet potato

An Americanism dating back to 1740–50

WORDS THAT MAY BE CONFUSED WITH sweet potato

cassava sweet potato yam

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2020

Examples from the Web for sweet potato

Her eyes soon dropped, and her attention was attracted by the yellow leaves on the sweet-potato vine.
The Hazeley Family|A. E. Johnson
Also we may claim the squash pie and the sweet-potato pie, both of which merit the highest encomiums.
The Art of Entertaining|M. E. W. Sherwood
Papa found a little bug this morning on the sweet-potato vines.
Harper's Young People, June 22, 1880|Various
Sweet-potato pie, an' burnt on one side—the side thet's left.
Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches|Ruth McEnery Stuart

All the chairs were occupied, and cigarette smoke drifted about the green trailers of a sweet-potato that grew across the beams.
Kit Musgrave's Luck|Harold Bindloss

British Dictionary definitions for sweet potato

sweet potato

noun

a convolvulaceous twining plant, Ipomoea batatas, of tropical America, cultivated in the tropics for its edible fleshy yellow root

the root of this plant

Also called (NZ): kumara

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