kumara

kumara — noun

1. a sweet potato that people cook and eat as a vegetable

1.nounC1
Definition

a sweet potato that people cook and eat as a vegetable

Example

Talia roasted a kumara and packed it into her lunch box.

countable use: roast a kumara

At the market, Kwame chose three kumaras for the family stew.

plural countable use

Common collocations
  • roast a kumara
  • grow kumaras
  • kumara chips
  • mashed kumara
  • kumara soup
Synonyms
  • sweet potato

    the broad everyday English term for the same root vegetable

  • yam

    often confused with it in shops, but it usually names a different crop

  • root vegetable

    a much broader category term, not this specific food

Grammar Patterns

roast a kumara

grow kumaras

kumara chips

Usage Note

The word often appears in cooking, market, and gardening contexts. Speakers may use it for one whole root or for the ingredient in a prepared dish such as kumara chips or soup.

Common Mistakes

I roasted kumara and packed it into one lunch box.
I roasted a kumara and packed it into one lunch box.
Use an article when you mean one whole root.
The recipe needs kumara, so I used white potatoes.
The recipe needs kumara, so I used sweet potatoes.
Kumara means a sweet potato, not an ordinary white potato.

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

For this sense, sweet potato is the broad everyday term in English for the sweet-tasting root vegetable itself. Kumara is another name for the same food, so it may appear on shop signs, menus, seed packets, or garden labels instead of sweet potato. Yam is often confused with it in supermarkets, but a yam is a different crop, so the two words are not exact synonyms. Potato is a different vegetable again: it is usually less sweet and cooks differently in many dishes. If a recipe says roast sweet potato, roast kumara points to the same ingredient. If a menu says kumara chips, it still means chips made from sweet potato, not ordinary potato.

kumara ↗sweet potato ↗yam ↗potato ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

  • kumara chips
  • kumara soup
  • kumara plant

Phrases

  • roast a kumara
  • grow kumaras
  • mash kumara

Etymology

MaoriEnglish

Kumara entered English from Maori as the name of a sweet potato. English has kept the word for the same food plant, especially when people talk about cooking, buying, or growing it.