yucca

name

1. Ellipsis of Yucca Mountain.

   “Add this issue tot the myriad of other problems at Yucca Mountain: its active seismicity, including last year's revelation in Science that the earth's crust at Yucca is less stable than scientists previously had believed […]”

   ““Maybe the mantle under Yucca is so damn hot that it behaves more like pudding or putty than solid brittle rock.” “Yeah. Ain't hindsight great,” Barney said. They sighed as Hank rolled up the earthquake maps[…]”

2. An unincorporated community and census-designated place in Mohave County, Arizona, United States.

noun

Etymology: Variant of yuca, sometimes said to be from Kari'na yuca (“cassava (Manihot esculenta)”), but this latter appears to be a ghost word. The word was applied to plants of the genus Yucca (now the main sense), because Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and others confused them with the cassava.

1. Any of several evergreen plants of the genus Yucca, having long, pointed, and rigid leaves at the top of a woody stem, and bearing a large panicle of showy white blossoms.

   “YUCCA: The Indian Yucca; vulgô. / The Characters are; / It hath the Appearance of an Aloe, the Leaves ending in a ſharp Point, but will grow in the Habit of a Tree; […] The Species are; / 1. Yucca; foliis Aloes. C. B. P. The common Yucca. / 2. Yucca; foliis filamentoſis. Moriſs. Yucca with Threads growing from the Leaves.[…]”

   “On the mountains a few junipers and piñons are found, and cactuses, agave, and yuccas, low, fleshy plants with bayonets and thorns.”

2. The yuca (cassava).

   “Jucca, ſive Yucca Peruana. The root whereof the bread Caſua, or Cazava is made.”

   “[A] second kind of bread is made of the root, called Yucca, which is bruised, and the juice, which is poisonous, expressed; it is then spread into broad thin cakes, and dried for use. In this shape it is called cassava, and though much esteemed by the natives, to a European palate (except perhaps a Scotch one) seems harsh, insipid, and little nutritious.”