Yampah

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A perennial herb native to western North America that produces small white flowers and an edible tuberous root used as food by indigenous peoples
2. A wild plant with clusters of tiny white blooms and starchy underground tubers that were traditionally harvested and eaten as a vegetable
3. A North American wildflower bearing small white flowers and producing nutritious root bulbs that were gathered and consumed as a staple food source

Etymology: Yampah is a North American plant, a member of the carrot family, whose name came into English from the Shoshone language. The Shoshone word "yampa" is the name the people gave to this root vegetable, which grew across the region and was an important food for them. English speakers borrowed the term directly, so the plant is known by the same name the Shoshone used for it. The borrowing tells a neat story about how plant names travel. Settlers and naturalists encountering unfamiliar plants often adopted the local names rather than inventing new ones, and "yampah" is one such example, carried from a Native language into the vocabulary of botany and the American West.

Synonyms: yampa