pokeweed

English

Etymology

From poke +‎ weed. The first element is from Powhatan pocan.

Noun

pokeweed (countable and uncountable, plural pokeweeds)

1. A poisonous North American plant, Phytolacca americana, with reddish stems, broad leaves, clusters of white flowers, and dark purple berries.
   • 2009, Herbert C. Covey, Dwight Eisnach, What the Slaves Ate, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 87:

     Native Americans introduced whites and slaves to several edible greens including marigold, milkweed, and pokeweed (Whit 2007). Slaves boiled pokeweed and often mixed it with turnip greens because it was thought that the two vegetables enhanced each other's flavor.

Synonyms

• poke, pokeberry, pokeroot, poke salad, American pokeweed, Virginian poke, pocan
• (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) American nightshade
• (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) cancer root
• garget
• inkberry
• pigeonweed
• skokeberry, scoke; coakum

Related terms

• poke salad, poke salet

Translations

Phytolacca americana

• Bulgarian: винобой f (vinoboj)
• Catalan: raïm de moro m
• Czech: líčidlo americké n
• Danish: kermesbær c
• Finnish: kermesmarja (fi)
• German: Kermesbeere (de) f
• Hungarian: alkörmös (hu)
• Italian: fitolacca f
• Korean: 미국자리공 (migukjarigong)
• Russian: лаконо́с (ru) m (lakonós), фитола́кка m (fitolákka)
• Swedish: amerikanskt kermesbär n
• Turkish: şekerciboyası (tr)
• Vietnamese: thương lục Mỹ

Further reading

• Phytolacca americana on Wikipedia.Wikipedia