Earthapples

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A dialect or archaic name for the potato, a starchy tuber grown underground as a vegetable
2. An old regional term for the round starchy root vegetable that grows beneath the soil
3. Another name for the potato, the edible tuber that develops underground on the plant's roots

Etymology: "Earthapples" is the plural of "earthapple", and the most surprising thing about it is that the original meaning had nothing to do with potatoes. Old English "eorþæppel" meant "cucumber", literally "earth-apple", a name for the ground-growing fruits of the gourd family such as melons and squash. The same name was later applied to the tuberous root of the sowbread and to the tomato-like fruit of the mandrake, both plants whose produce grows at or below the soil. The potato sense came much later, and it came by translation. Dutch "aardappel", meaning "potato", is a calque of the same idea: the Dutch word was built from "aarde" (earth) and "appel" (apple), so the English term reproduces a Dutch coinage rather than inheriting an older one. German "Erdapfel" follows the same pattern, and French instead used "pomme de terre", "apple of the ground".