Etymology Borrowed from Portuguese inhame and Spanish ñame, likely from Wolof ñàmbi (“cassava”) or a related word. The term was spelled yam as early as 1657.
Any climbing vine of the genus Dioscorea in the Eastern and Western hemispheres, usually cultivated.
2
The edible, starchy, tuberous root of that plant, a tropical staple food.
Inwardly Okonkwo knew that the boys were still too young to understand fully the difficult art of preparing seed-yams. But he thought that one could not begin too early. Yam stood for manliness, and he who could feed his family on yams from one harvest to another was a very great man indeed.1958 June 17, Chinua Achebe, chapter 4, in Things Fall Apart, New York, N.Y.: Astor-Honor, published 1959, →OCLC, part 1, page 34:
3
US A sweet potato; a tuber from the species Ipomoea batatas.
“Stay, jailer, stay, and hear my woe,” repeating again and again, very softly, the line at the end of each stanza, “I am not mad, I am not mad.” Except she sang it: “I yam not mad, I yam not mad.”1904, Carrie Hunt Latta, “The Last Day of Schol”, in The Reader Magazine, volume IV, Indianopolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, page 291:
yam
noun
Etymology Alternative form of hjem. Likely caused by influence from Old Norse heim (“home, homewards”), the accusative form of heimr (“abode, world, land”), from Proto-Germanic *haimaz. More at home.
“If I was that snake I’d just open my jaw and yam that fool up in one bite!”2016, Zadie Smith, Swing Time, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 78:
yam
verb
Etymology Apparently a variation of jam (“dunk”, verb).