Definition of potato in English:

nounpotatoes

• 1A starchy plant tuber which is one of the most important food crops, cooked and eaten as a vegetable.

  ‘roast potatoes’

  mass noun ‘mashed potato’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Avoid fatty and fried foods and stick to starchy foods like rice, potatoes and pasta.’
  • ‘Conventional wisdom dictates that starchy foods such as potatoes should give up their sugar slowly into the bloodstream.’
  • ‘Alternatively, the lamb may be cooked with potatoes or rice, the fat cooking out to enrich and flavour the starchy accompaniment.’
  • ‘He was the perfect host, cooking us all potato soup and rice on a kerosene stove.’
  • ‘Crops including potatoes and vegetables will be grown, together with grass and clover pasture to help build fertility.’
  • ‘For example, pick up a roasted chicken from the deli and cook potatoes and vegetables at home.’
  • ‘I have been cooking potatoes in olive oil and then topping them with cheese for years.’
  • ‘Spoon some potatoes and vegetables around the dish and garnish with fried leeks.’
  • ‘Tea was also rationed, but important foods such as bread, potatoes, vegetables, fruit, and fish were not.’
  • ‘Lunch would be stew or steak and kidney pud with potatoes and boiled green vegetables.’
  • ‘We enjoyed a lunch of a potato leek soup topped off with grated Parmesan cheese.’
  • ‘These standards mean starchy foods such as bread, potatoes, rice and pasta must not be cooked in oil or fat more than three times a week.’
  • ‘Once the potatoes are cooked, drain them, and mash with the butter and salt and pepper.’
  • ‘Platters of steamed vegetables and roast potatoes were also served.’
  • ‘Turn everything gently as it cooks, letting the potatoes and onions colour slightly.’
  • ‘Place half the leeks on top of potatoes and season with salt and white pepper.’
  • ‘Get your parents to show you how to cook simple things like potatoes, rice and pasta.’
  • ‘We'll cook roast lamb and potatoes and indulgent desserts and scoff the whole thing ourselves.’
  • ‘Cook the potatoes in simmering salted water for 20 min or until tender.’
  • ‘More spuds, plus homegrown leeks, red onions and garlic made the potato and leek soup I'll be enjoying for lunch tomorrow.’

• 2The plant of the nightshade family which produces potatoes on underground runners.

  Solanum tuberosum, family Solanaceae. It was first cultivated in the Andes about 1,800 years ago and was introduced to Europe in c.1570

  More example sentences

  • ‘The turnips did fine in ground previously inhabited by beans, beets, lettuce and potatoes.’
  • ‘She is out with her son planting potatoes on the family farm.’
  • ‘Tomatoes are apart of the nightshade family, which include potatoes and eggplants.’
  • ‘Yet even cabbages and potatoes are fun to grow, if you grow the right kinds.’
  • ‘Winter and spring cereals, potatoes and sugar beet are grown, while cattle graze old pastures and hay is made on ancient hay meadows.’
  • ‘As well as radishes, they plant carrots and sometimes potatoes.’
  • ‘So we're talking really about wheat, cow's milk, and the potato family.’
  • ‘The most commonly cultivated crops are grains, fodder, sugar beets, rape, potatoes, and hops.’
  • ‘The Colorado potato beetle is a pest of mature plants, and often prefers eggplants to potatoes.’
  • ‘The main agricultural products are grains, sugar beet, and potatoes.’
  • ‘In his younger years Paddy went to work at the beet and potatoes harvesting in the English Midlands.’
  • ‘If you plant potatoes in your garden, potatoes will grow - not carrots or daisies.’
  • ‘By the end of May, the oats, corn, and beans were all well above the ground and the potatoes were on their way.’
  • ‘A draft scheme for the supply of seed oats, wheat, barley, potatoes and fertilisers was put to the council.’
  • ‘People farm corn, manioc, potatoes, beans, and rice for their personal use.’
  • ‘For the same reason, avoid planting your runners in soil that has been used for growing potatoes the previous year.’
  • ‘As it is, the potato belongs to the botanical family, Solanacea, to which poisonous plants like the nightshade belong.’
  • ‘In spring he ploughed their fields for the planting of potatoes and oats.’
  • ‘Those have been for a variety of organisms, including potatoes, cattle, and petunias.’
  • ‘The agricultural products are dairy and beef products, pork, poultry, potatoes, and flax.’

• 3British informal A large hole in a sock or stocking, especially one in the heel.

  ‘I’ve got a potato in my sock.’

  ‘Gumboots will hole a potato like a cannon-ball in the heels of a new pair of socks in an afternoon.’