tapioca

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Portuguese tapioca, from Old Tupi tapi'oka.

Pronunciation

  • (General American) IPA(key): /tæpiˈoʊkə/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)

Noun

tapioca (countable and uncountable, plural tapiocas)

  1. A starchy food made from the cassava plant, used in puddings.
    Synonyms: cassava, manioc
    • 2009, Edna Staebler, Food That Really Schmecks, Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, →ISBN, page 286:
      Fish eyes and glue we used to call the half-cooked, large-grained, starchy tapioca without flavour that we were served every week in our residence at university. How I longed for the creamy pudding Mother used to make.
    • 2021 April 16, Kellen Browning, “Another Unlikely Pandemic Shortage: Boba Tea”, in The New York Times‎[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 May 2025:
      It happened when beverage aficionados learned that tapioca, the starch used to make the sweet, round, chewy black bubbles — or pearls — that are the featured topping in the popular boba tea drink, was in short supply.
  2. The cassava plant, Manihot esculenta, from which tapioca is derived; manioc.
    • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 270:
      When the entire coast-line becomes a sea of waving palms, with Chinese and Malay villages fringing the shores, which are at present mere barren wastes of mangroves, with plantations of pepper, of gambier, and of tapioca and rice, the Northern Territory, backed up by the unswerving energy of the Australian squatter, miner, and planter, will present a spectacle almost unknown in the scheme of British colonization.

Derived terms

Descendants

  • → Māori: tapioka
  • → Marshallese: tapioka
  • → Tagalog: tapyoka

Translations

Further reading

French

Etymology

    Borrowed from Portuguese tapioca.

    Pronunciation

    • IPA(key): /ta.pjɔ.ka/
    • Audio (France):(file)

    Noun

    tapioca m (plural tapiocas)

    1. tapioca

    Descendants

    Further reading

    Italian

    Etymology

      Borrowed from Portuguese tapioca.

      Noun

      tapioca f (plural tapioche)

      1. tapioca

      Anagrams

      Portuguese

      Etymology

        Borrowed from Old Tupi tapi'oka.

        Pronunciation

        • (Brazil) IPA(key): /ta.piˈɔ.kɐ/, (faster) /taˈpjɔ.kɐ/

        • Rhymes: -ɔkɐ
        • Hyphenation: ta‧pi‧o‧ca

        Noun

        tapioca f (plural tapiocas)

        1. tapioca (starchy food made from cassava)
        2. (cooking) crepe made with tapioca, served with various fillings, often meat or cheese

        Descendants

        See also

        Further reading

        Spanish

        Etymology

        Etymology tree
        Old Tupi tapi'okabor.
        Portuguese tapiocabor.
        Spanish tapioca

          Borrowed from Portuguese tapioca.

          Pronunciation

          • IPA(key): /taˈpjoka/ [t̪aˈpjo.ka]
          • Rhymes: -oka
          • Syllabification: ta‧pio‧ca

          Noun

          tapioca f (plural tapiocas)

          1. tapioca

          Derived terms

          • perlas de tapioca

          Further reading

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