potato

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A perennial plant (Solanum tuberosum) in the nightshade family that was first cultivated in South America and is widely grown for its starchy edible tubers.
• noun A tuber of this plant.
• noun Any of various wild plants in the genus Solanum that are similar to the cultivated potato.
• noun A sweet potato.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The sweet potato. See below.
• noun One of the esculent tubers of the common plant Solanum tuberosum, or the plant itself.
• noun The liliaceous genus Calochortus: so called from its bulb or corm.
• noun In Bengal, the yam.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A plant (Solanum tuberosum) of the Nightshade family, and its esculent farinaceous tuber, of which there are numerous varieties used for food. It is native of South America, but a form of the species is found native as far north as New Mexico.
• noun The sweet potato (see below).
• noun (Zoöl.) The Lema trilineata, a smaller and more slender striped beetle which feeds upon the potato plant, bur does less injury than the preceding species.
• noun (Zoöl.) any one of several species of blister beetles infesting the potato vine. The black species (Lytta atrata), the striped (Lytta vittata), and the gray (Lytta Fabricii syn. Lytta cinerea) are the most common. See Blister beetle, under Blister.
• noun a disease of the tubers of the potato, supposed to be caused by a kind of mold (Peronospora infestans), which is first seen upon the leaves and stems.
• noun (Zoöl.) an American weevil (Baridius trinotatus) whose larva lives in and kills the stalks of potato vines, often causing serious damage to the crop.
• noun a strong, fiery liquor, having a hot, smoky taste, and rich in amyl alcohol (fusel oil); it is made from potatoes or potato starch.
• noun (Zoöl.) the large green larva of a sphinx, or hawk moth (Macrosila quinquemaculata); -- called also tomato worm. See Illust. under Tomato.
• noun (Bot.), [West Indies] Ipomœa Pes-Capræ, a kind of morning-glory with rounded and emarginate or bilobed leaves.
• noun (Bot.) a climbing plant (Ipomœa Balatas) allied to the morning-glory. Its farinaceous tubers have a sweetish taste, and are used, when cooked, for food. It is probably a native of Brazil, but is cultivated extensively in the warmer parts of every continent, and even as far north as New Jersey. The name potato was applied to this plant before it was to the Solanum tuberosum, and this is the “potato” of the Southern United States.
• noun (Bot.) A similar tropical American plant (Ipomœa fastigiata) which it is thought may have been the original stock of the sweet potato.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A plant tuber, Solanum tuberosum, eaten as a starchy vegetable, particularly in the Americas and Europe
• noun informal, UK A conspicuous hole in a sock or stocking

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun annual native to South America having underground stolons bearing edible starchy tubers; widely cultivated as a garden vegetable; vines are poisonous
• noun an edible tuber native to South America; a staple food of Ireland