potato

noun (plural potatoes)

• 1a starchy plant tuber that is one of the most important food crops, cooked and eaten as a vegetable:roasted potatoes the meal comes with rice or potato [as modifier]:leek and potato soup
• see sweet potato.

• 2the plant of the nightshade family that produces the potato tubers 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 circa 1570