Dictionary

tuckahoe en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈtʌkəhəʊ/ (UK)

Etymology

From Powhatan tockawhoughe. The "person" sense implies that such a person was so poor as to be reduced to eating the root.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The edible root of a plant of species Peltandra virginica, used by Native Americans of colonial-era Virginia.
   • In June, July, and August, they feed upon the rootes of Tockwough berries, fish, and greene wheat. 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 142:
   • The ponderous beast had spent the summer eating tuckahoe roots, the autumn eating acorns and nuts, and was now as heavy as two stout men. 1996, Karen Mueller Coombs, Sarah on Her Own:
2. (US, Virginia, countable, dialectal, obsolete, uncommon, uncountable) A person, especially if poor and malnourished (or if implied to be), living east of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.
   • The poor Tuckahoe, however, when he purchased land in Washington County, or the Shenandoah, or in Rowan, seems to have left behind him, not only his worn-out fields and his tumbledown house, but his wasteful methods. 1963, Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, The Old South: the founding of American civilization, page 213:
   • […] at least until you either get poor Tuckahoe out of his present hobble, in furnishing so many strong suspicions against the sincerity of his former professions of patriotism, […] 1828 February 8, "Tusgarora" (pen name), in a letter to the editor of The American Farmer, page 372
3. (countable, uncountable) The sclerotium of wood-decay fungi of species Wolfiporia extensa, used by Native Americans and the Chinese as food and as a herbal medicine.
4. (countable, uncountable) The flowering plant Orontium aquaticum.

Forms

Coordinates

Cohee

Deriveds

Tuckahoe Group

Synonyms

arrow arum · wild potato

Translations (2)

cmn 茯苓 (the sclerotium of the fungus Wolfiporia extensa) · chc yap weye (the sclerotium of the fungus Wolfiporia extensa)