tuber

¹

[too-ber, tyoo-]

noun

1. a person or thing that forms, installs, or operates with tubes.

2. Also called inner-tuber. a person who participates in the sport of tubing. tube.

tuber

²

[too-ber, tyoo-]

noun

1. Botany.,  a fleshy, usually oblong or rounded thickening or outgrowth, as the potato, of a subterranean stem or shoot, bearing minute scalelike leaves with buds or eyes in their axils from which new plants may arise.

2. Anatomy.,  a rounded swelling or protuberance; a tuberosity; a tubercle.

tuber

/ ˈtjuːbə /

noun

1. a fleshy underground stem (as in the potato) or root (as in the dahlia) that is an organ of vegetative reproduction and food storage

2. anatomy a raised area; swelling

tuber

1. The thickened part of an underground stem of a plant, such as the potato, bearing buds from which new plant shoots arise.

2. Compare bulb corm rhizome runner

Other Word Forms

• tuberless adjective
• tuberoid adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of tuber¹

First recorded in 1920–25; tube + -er ¹

Origin of tuber²

1660–70; < Latin tūber bump, swelling. truffle

Word History and Origins

Origin of tuber¹

C17: from Latin tūber hump

Example Sentences

What appears to have started as one man’s idea of a joke has spread in recent years, with more households offering the tuber in an effort to give the festivities a topsy-turvy spin.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

While bears are typically seen as apex predators, he says, black bears — the only wild bears left in California — are actually vegetarian-leaning omnivores, eating far more grass, tubers, roots and berries than meat.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The movie starts in fictional Chuglass, Idaho, the “potato chip capital of America,” where a giant tuber mascot looms over the town.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The distinctive tangy taste of attiéké comes from the cassava tubers mixed with fermented cassava, which gives it its unique flavour and texture.

Read more on BBC

A team from the University of Illinois has engineered potato to be more resilient to global warming showing 30% increases in tuber mass under heatwave conditions.

Read more on Science Daily