pokeweed
English
Etymology
poke + weed. The first element is from Powhatan pocan.[1][2]
Noun
pokeweed (countable and uncountable, plural pokeweeds)
- A poisonous North American plant, Phytolacca americana, with reddish stems, broad leaves, clusters of white flowers, and dark purple berries.
- 2009, Herbert C. Covey; Dwight Eisnach, What the Slaves Ate, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 87:
- Native Americans introduced whites and slaves to several edible greens including marigold, milkweed, and pokeweed (Whit 2007). Slaves boiled pokeweed and often mixed it with turnip greens because it was thought that the two vegetables enhanced each other's flavor.
-
Synonyms
- poke, pokeberry, pokeroot, American pokeweed, Virginian poke, pocan
- inkberry
- pigeonweed
- skokeberry, scoke; coakum
Related terms
- poke salad
- poke salet
Translations
Phytolacca americana
|
References
- Charles L. Cutler, O Brave New Words!: Native American Loanwords in Current English →ISBN, 2000)
- Oxford Dictionary of English →ISBN
Further reading
''Phytolacca americana'' on Wikipedia.Wikipedia