yam

• (UK, US) enPR: yăm, IPA^(key): /jæm/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æm

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

yam (plural yams)

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.
   • 1958, Chinua Achebe, chapter 4, in Things Fall Apart, New York: Astor-Honor, published 1959, part 1, page 34:

     Inwardly Okonkwo knew that the boys were still too young to understand fully the difficult art of preparing seed-yams. But he thought that one could not begin too early. Yam stood for manliness, and he who could feed his family on yams from one harvest to another was a very great man indeed.

3. (US) A sweet potato; a tuber from the species Ipomoea batatas.
4. (Scotland) A potato.
5. (New Zealand) A oca; a tuber from the species Oxalis tuberosa.
6. (Malaysia, Singapore) Taro.
7. An orange-brown colour, like the flesh of the yam. (Can we add an example for this sense?)

   yam:  

Careful use distinguishes yams (genus Dioscorea) from sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas), while casual American use conflates these.

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.

yam (plural yams)

1. (regional, Cumberland) Home.

yam

1. Pronunciation spelling of am.
   • 1904, Carrie Hunt Latta, “The Last Day of Schol”, in The Reader Magazine‎, volume IV, Indianopolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, page 291:

     “Stay, jailer, stay, and hear my woe,” repeating again and again, very softly, the line at the end of each stanza, “I am not mad, I am not mad.”
     Except she sang it:
     “I yam not mad, I yam not mad.”

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

yam (third-person singular simple present yams, present participle yamming, simple past and past participle yammed)

1. (UK, nonstandard, slang) To eat.
   • 2016, Zadie Smith, Swing Time, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 78:

     “If I was that snake I’d just open my jaw and yam that fool up in one bite!”

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

yam (third-person singular simple present yams, present participle yamming, simple past and past participle yammed)

1. (especially basketball) To dunk on; to beat humiliatingly.
   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:yam.

• Jonathon Green (2024) “yam n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang
• Jonathon Green (2024) “yam v.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang

• Amy, MYA, May, Mya, may, mya

yam

1. (Eastern) yesterday

• 2007. The UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Department of Linguistics.

See yamçı.

• Audio

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yam (definite accusative yamı, plural yamlar)

1. (historical) mail staging post

• yamçı

• “yam” in Obastan.com.

yám

1. water

• Klaus and Charlotte Wedekind, Abuzeinab Musa, Beja Pedagogical Grammar (2005)
• Etudes berbères et chamito-sémitiques: mélanges offerts à Karl-G. Prasse (2000, →ISBN, page 38
• Václav Blažek, A Lexicostatistical comparison of Omotic languages, in In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory: Essays in the four fields of anthropology, page 122

Ultimately from Proto-Chadic *ymn.

yam

1. water

• Mélanie Viljoen, Michael Viljoen, Pascal Konai, François Mbouvai, Ernest Koyang, Benjamin Deli, Précis d’orthographe pour la langue buwal - Édition préliminaire (2009, Yaoundé, SIL Cameroun)

Ultimately from Proto-Chadic *ymn.

yam

1. water

• ASJP
• Olga Stolbova, Chadic Lexical Database, issue II (2007): yam "water"

Borrowed from English yam.

• IPA^(key): /jɑm/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: yam
• Rhymes: -ɑm

yam m (plural yams or yammen, diminutive yammetje n)

1. yam, a tropical vine
2. its edible root

• jam
• yamswortel

• IPA^(key): /jam/

yam

1. beside

• Hkaw Luk (2017) A grammatical sketch of Lacid‎, Chiang Mai: Payap University (master thesis)

Ultimately from Proto-Chadic *ymn.

yam

1. water

• Richard Gravina (compiler); Alan Boydell, Elie Doumok (facilitators), Merey lexicon (2003, SIL)

yam

1. (Northern, northern East Midlands) Alternative form of þem (“them”)

Ultimately from Proto-Chadic *ymn.

yam

1. water

• Topics in Mofu-Gudur (SIL)

Ultimately from Proto-Chadic *ymn.

yam

1. water

• Etudes berbères et chamito-sémitiques: mélanges offerts à Karl-G. Prasse (2000, →ISBN, page 38

From Proto-Khasian *jaːm, from Proto-Mon-Khmer *jaam. Cognate with Khasi ïam, Blang jàm, Khmu [Cuang] jaːm, Mang ɲaːm¹, Mon ယာံ, Khmer យំ (yum).

• IPA^(key): /jam/

yam

1. to cry, to weep

Ultimately from Proto-Chadic *ymn.

yam

1. water

• Etudes berbères et chamito-sémitiques: mélanges offerts à Karl-G. Prasse (2000, →ISBN, page 38

From English yam.

yam

1. yam

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *k-j(i/u)m.

yam

1. house

Ultimately from Proto-Chadic *ymn.

yam

1. water

• An Outline Sketch of Gemzek Grammar
• An Overview of Gemzek Narrative Discourse Features