yucca
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: Variant of yuca, sometimes said to be from Kari'na yuca (“cassava (Manihot esculenta)”), but this latter appears to be a ghost word. The word was applied to plants of the genus Yucca (now the main sense), because Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and others confused them with the cassava.
Inflected forms:
form: yuccas
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Any of several evergreen plants of the genus Yucca, having long, pointed, and rigid leaves at the top of a woody stem, and bearing a large panicle of showy white blossoms.
pos: noun
examples: YUCCA: The Indian Yucca; vulgô. / The Characters are; / It hath the Appearance of an Aloe, the Leaves ending in a ſharp Point, but will grow in the Habit of a Tree; […] The Species are; / 1. Yucca; foliis Aloes. C. B. P. The common Yucca. / 2. Yucca; foliis filamentoſis. Moriſs. Yucca with Threads growing from the Leaves.[…]
On the mountains a few junipers and piñons are found, and cactuses, agave, and yuccas, low, fleshy plants with bayonets and thorns.
Yuccas are large, impressive plants with tough, leathery swordlike leaves and towering stalks of white cupshaped flowers. Although they are most abundant in the arid Southwest and on into Mexico, yuccas also grow in dry sandy spots throughout the East and Midwest. There are about forty species of yuccas. All have fibers in their leaves, and many serve as soap plants also[…].
The strange yet appealing yucca is native to the United States, Mexico and the West Indies and is part of the Agavaceae family, many species of which have tough, sword-like leaves.
Small, shrubby yuccas give your landscape a characteristic Southwest flavor. Their size adapts them to limited areas, such as patio and pool gardens or corner plantings. The blade-like leaves add variety to a cactus or xeriscape garden. Small yuccas make ideal accent plants, and when they send up their stalk of flowers, they become the center of attention.
gloss: The yuca (cassava).
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
proscribed
examples: Jucca, ſive Yucca Peruana. The root whereof the bread Caſua, or Cazava is made.
[A] second kind of bread is made of the root, called Yucca, which is bruised, and the juice, which is poisonous, expressed; it is then spread into broad thin cakes, and dried for use. In this shape it is called cassava, and though much esteemed by the natives, to a European palate (except perhaps a Scotch one) seems harsh, insipid, and little nutritious.
There are two kinds of the yucca, or manioc root,—the yucca dulce and the yucca amarga,—the sweet and bitter. One may be eaten raw without danger. The other, which closely resembles it, if eaten raw, would produce almost instant death, as its juice is one of the deadliest of vegetable poisons.
In some parts of the Indies they use a kind of bread called cassava, which is made from a certain root called yucca. The yucca root is large and thick. It is cut into small pieces and grated and squeezed in a sort of press, and what is left resembles a thin cake that is very long and broad, almost like a shield. Dried, this is the bread that they eat; it has no taste and is perfectly insipid but is wholesome and nourishing.
Cassava is a typical Garífuna food made from yucca, a semi-permanent crop found in tropical and subtropical regions. A basic food crop, yucca grows in poor soil where other crops will not.
Derived words: banana yucca
chaparral yucca
datil yucca
foothill yucca
Quixote yucca
soaptree yucca
yucca borer
yuccaloeside
yucca moth
Translations: