'Potato' is a blend of two unrelated New World words — Taino 'batata' and Quechua 'papa,' merged by the Spanish.
A starchy tuberous crop from the nightshade family, one of the most important food plants in the world.
From Spanish 'patata,' a conflation of two unrelated New World words: Taino 'batata' (sweet potato) and Quechua 'papa' (potato). The Taino word 'batata' originally referred to the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), which the Spanish encountered first in the Caribbean. When the Spanish later encountered the true potato (Solanum tuberosum) in Peru, where the Quechua called it 'papa,' they conflated the two plants and the two names, producing
'Potato' is a linguistic chimera — a word built from two unrelated languages that were spoken thousands of miles apart. Spanish 'patata' blends Taino 'batata' (sweet potato, from the Caribbean) with Quechua 'papa' (potato, from Peru). German went a completely different route: 'Kartoffel' comes from Italian 'tartufolo' (little truffle), because Europeans thought the underground tuber resembled a truffle.