popolo

Borrowed from Hawaiian pōpolo from Proto-Polynesian *polo; cognate with Maori poroporo and pōporo (Solanum aviculare), Tongan polo (“Solanum nigrum”) and Tuvaluan 'opolo (“capsicum”).[1] Skin color meaning comes from analogy to the color of its berries.[2]

popolo (countable and uncountable, plural popolos)

1. (Hawaii) black nightshade (Solanum nigrum).
   • 1883, All about Hawaii, page 36:

     The only lack of Kalelealuaka and his comrades was animal food (literally fish) but they supplied its place aw well as they could with such herbs as the tender leaves of the popolo, which they cooked like spinach, and with inamona made from the roasted nuts of the kukui tree.

   • 1975, L. R. McBride, Practical folk medicine of Hawaii, page 67:

     Popolo is a branching green herb with a tendency to being woody at the base. This annual grows one to three feet high on cultivated land and is regarded as a common weed.

   • 1998, Hawaiian Entomological Society, Proceedings of the Hawaiian Entomological Society:

     This mite was collected at the Maui Community College agricultural field (Kahului) on popolo berry on 19 July 1995 by C. McGrath.

   • 2011, William D. Westervelt, Hawaiian Legends of Ghosts and Ghost-Gods, →ISBN:

     He turned and went back at the call of the messenger, taking some popolo fruit and leaves in his cloak.

2. (Hawaii, slang, countable, sometimes pejorative) A black person.
   • 2004, Miles M. Jackson, Social Process in Hawaii - Volume 43, page 92:

     Well, I'm a Hawaiian, but my father was a black-assed popolo—a Portuguese from Bravas, Cabo Verde Islands, who changed his name.

   • 2007, Charles Euchner, Little League, Big Dreams, →ISBN:

     When he gets to third, Fe'ao is excited. He sees Curaçao's thir baseman, Denjerick Virginie, starting at him as he slaps his hands together. "What you looking at, popolo?" he barks.

   • 2010, Dave Burgess, A Tale of Two Brothers, →ISBN, page 176:

     I think that most people in Hawaii agree with my mother-in-law's view of Barry as a good Hawaiian boy; a popolo Hawaiian boy, but a Hawaiian boy nonetheless.

   • 2014, Janet Mock, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, →ISBN:

     There was a racial order that existed even in this group of tweens. They teased that Chad and I were popolo, Hawaiian slang for black people. Popolo are shiny berries that grow in clusters in the islands and are so black that they shine purple on branches.

From Latin populus.

• IPA^(key): [poˈpolo]
• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -olo
• Hyphenation: po‧po‧lo

popolo (accusative singular popolon, plural popoloj, accusative plural popolojn)

1. people
   • 1891, L. L. Zamenhof, La Espero:

     Forte staras muroj de miljaroj inter la popoloj dividitaj.

     The walls of millennia stand firm between the divided people.

• popolamaso (“populace, masses”)
• popolriĉa

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɔ.po.lo/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔpolo
• Hyphenation: pò‧po‧lo

From Latin populus, from Proto-Italic *poplos (“army”).

popolo m (plural popoli)

1. people

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

popolo

1. first-person singular present indicative of popolare