sweet potato

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable

   A starchy root vegetable with orange, yellow, or purple flesh and a sweet taste, cooked and eaten as food.

   Grammar: Countable: one sweet potato, two sweet potatoes; the flesh as food is uncountable (a bowl of sweet potato).

   Patterns

   • roast a sweet potato
   • sweet potato fries
   • a sweet potato casserole

   She roasted sweet potatoes with olive oil and salt for dinner.

   We ordered a side of sweet potato fries instead of regular ones.

   Mashed sweet potato is often served with butter and cinnamon.

2. 2nouncountable

   The tropical climbing plant that produces this root, grown as a crop in warm regions.

   Grammar: Countable as a plant: farmers plant sweet potatoes in rows.

   Patterns

   • grow sweet potatoes
   • a sweet potato field

   Farmers in the region grow sweet potatoes in sandy soil.

   The sweet potato is a vine that spreads quickly across the ground.

Word forms

Common combinations

sweet potato pie

Sweet potato pie is a traditional dessert in the southern United States.

roast sweet potatoes

Roast the sweet potatoes for forty minutes until they are soft.

sweet potato fries

The kids always ask for sweet potato fries at that restaurant.

mashed sweet potato

She served the chicken with mashed sweet potato and greens.

peel a sweet potato

Peel the sweet potato before cutting it into cubes.

Synonyms and how they differ

yam

In the US, 'yam' is often used for the orange sweet potato, but a true yam is a different, larger tropical root.

tuber

'Tuber' is the general scientific word for any thick underground stem like this; it is not a name for this vegetable in cooking.

Word family

potato noun

The related but different white-fleshed root vegetable.

Commonly confused: sweet potato or potato? sweet potato or yam?

Practice

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Write a sentence using “sweet potato”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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