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Glite Dictionary
🍠 A root vegetable 🎶 An ocarina
sweet potato

sweet potato

1 7.9
A small egg-shaped clay wind instrument with a mouthpiece and finger holes
  • noun
  • US
translation icon : ocarina
  • Sweet potato and asparagus

Examples

  • There are tons of great things to bid on, including sweet potato and chocolate chip cookies straight from my kitchen.

    Blog text (31)

  • The musician demonstrated his skills by playing the sweet potato during the concert.

  • In her art class, she learned how to craft a beautiful sweet potato from clay.

  • During the workshop, participants were excited to try their hands at making a sweet potato.

Synonyms

ocarina
vssweet potato
2 9.3

A small egg-shaped wind instrument made of clay with a mouthpiece and finger holes

is the same instrument but given by a different common name

How Portable

kazoo
11 7.9
sweet potato
  • US
1 7.9
recorder
7 3.2
guitar
∞ 1.0
piano
698 1.0

Surface Forms

sweet potato singular
sweet potatoes plural

Morphology

sweet + potato

The constituent words 'sweet' (having sugary taste) and 'potato' (a starchy tuber) point to a food item, so a B1 learner would naturally expect a vegetable. The given sense — an ocarina-like terracotta wind instrument nicknamed for its shape — is a metaphorical, culture-specific name that cannot be derived from the literal meanings of the parts, making it unpredictable for learners.

Etymology

Sweet potato One popular reason this word is used for an ocarina is its shape: the small clay instrument is egg-shaped and looks like a little potato, so people nicknamed it sweet potato. That's why the name can also mean the 'small clay wind instrument'.