yucca
yucca Lexical Profile
yucca Game Scores & Validity
• noun
The starchy, tuberous root of the cassava plant (Manihot esculenta), more accurately spelled 'yuca' in culinary contexts, widely boiled, fried, or mashed in Latin American and Caribbean cuisine.
"The restaurant served roasted pork alongside a generous portion of fried yucca and garlic sauce."
An evergreen shrub or small tree of the genus Yucca cultivated as an architectural foliage houseplant or drought-tolerant landscaping specimen for its rigid, spiky leaves and stout trunk.
"They placed a potted yucca in the sunny corner of the living room to add greenery to the space."
Any of various perennial shrubs or trees of the genus Yucca in the family Asparagaceae, native to arid and hot regions of the Americas, characterized by rosettes of tough, sword-shaped leaves and tall, dramatic panicles of large, cup-shaped, creamy white or greenish blossoms.
"In late spring, the desert landscape was illuminated by tall stalks of fragrant white yucca blossoms."
Word Nuance & Usage
'Yucca' (spelled with a double 'c') refers to the ornamental desert plant in the asparagus family, and should not be confused with 'yuca' (spelled with a single 'c'), which is the Spanish and culinary name for cassava, a starchy tropical root vegetable.
• Rhymes for yucca
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the 16th century via Modern Latin and Spanish 'yuca' from Taíno, an Indigenous Arawakan language of the Caribbean; early European botanists mistakenly applied the native name for the cassava plant to this genus of desert succulents.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.