means A starchy edible tuber from the plant Solanum tuberosum, eaten boiled, fried, mashed, or roasted the world over.

from From Spanish 'patata,' itself a blend of the Taíno 'batata' (which actually meant the sweet potato) and the Quechua 'papa' (the Andean tuber we now call the potato). Spanish colonizers tangled the two names together when they brought the plant back from the Americas, and the confusion stuck — English borrowed 'potato' in the 16th century, first applying it to the sweet potato before the white tuber claimed the word for good.