yam

Any climbing vine of the genus Dioscorea in the Eastern and Western hemispheres, usually cultivated.

The edible, starchy, tuberous root of that plant, a tropical staple food.

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.

A sweet potato; a tuber from the species Ipomoea batatas.

A potato.

An oca; a tuber from the species Oxalis tuberosa.

Home.

Pronunciation spelling of am.

“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.”