tuckahoe

Meaning

Noun

• Any edible root of a plant used by Native Americans of colonial-era Virginia.
• A person, especially if poor and malnourished (or if implied to be), living east of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains.
• The sclerotium of the wood-decay fungus Wolfiporia extensa (species), used by Native Americans and the Chinese as food and as a herbal medicine.

Origin

• From Powhatan tockawhoughe. The "person" sense implies that such a person was so poor as to be reduced to eating the root.