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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

yam.

Any climbing vine of the genus Dioscorea in the Eastern and Western hemispheres, usually cultivated.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/jæm/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[jeəm] ~ [jɛəm]/jam/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/jæːm/Australia
  1. Any climbing vine of the genus Dioscorea in the Eastern and Western hemispheres, usually cultivated.

  2. The edible, starchy, tuberous root of that plant, a tropical staple food.

  3. A sweet potato; a tuber from the species Ipomoea batatas.

    US
  4. A potato.

    Scotland
  5. An oca; a tuber from the species Oxalis tuberosa.

    New-Zealand
  6. Taro.

    Malaysia · Singapore
  7. An orange-brown colour, like the flesh of the yam.

Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Portuguese inhame and Spanish ñame, likely from Wolof ñàmbi (“cassava”) or a related word. The term was spelled yam as early as 1657.

noun/jæm/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[jeəm] ~ [jɛəm]/jam/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/jæːm/Australia
  1. Home.

    regional
Where this word comes from

Alternative form of hjem. Likely caused by influence from Old Norse heim (“home, homewards”), the accusative form of heimr (“abode, world, land”), from Proto-Germanic *haimaz. More at home.

verb/jæm/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[jeəm] ~ [jɛəm]/jam/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/jæːm/Australia
  1. To eat.

    UK · slang
Where this word comes from

Ultimately from Fula nyaamude (“to eat”) or a cognate Fula-Wolof term.

verb/jæm/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[jeəm] ~ [jɛəm]/jam/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/jæːm/Australia
  1. To dunk on; to beat humiliatingly.

    especially
Where this word comes from

Apparently a variation of jam (“dunk”, verb).

verb/jæm/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[jeəm] ~ [jɛəm]/jam/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales/jæːm/Australia
  1. Pronunciation spelling of am.

    alt-of · pronunciation-spelling
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.