potatoes

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of potato.

   She roasted the potatoes with rosemary and a little olive oil.

   Bins of muddy potatoes lined the back of the market stall.

   Note

   The plural keeps an e that the singular never shows: potato, potatoes. It carries every sense of the singular, not only the tuber. In informal British use, potatoes can be conspicuous holes in a sock or stocking. The same spelling also serves the verb meaning to pummel, so word order settles it: with a subject before it and an object after it, potatoes is a verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of potato.

   When a wrestler potatoes his opponent, a blow that was meant to look real actually lands.

   Veterans complain that the rookie potatoes everyone he works with in the ring.

   Note

   The verb always takes an object: someone potatoes a person or a target. Two uses share the form. The slang one means pummeling hard, as a boxer works an opponent on the ropes, and involves no vegetable at all. The literal one means striking with a thrown or fired potato. The surrounding scene, a fight or a spud cannon, tells the reader which is meant.

3. 3
   nounobsolete

   Plural of potatoe.

   Note

   An obsolete singular hides behind a perfectly modern plural. Potatoe was an old spelling of potato, and it formed its plural the same way, so both spellings arrive at potatoes. Only the singular shows the difference. Modern writers should keep the final e out of the singular, where it now reads as a misspelling, and use it freely in the plural.

Showing meanings only. Show all 3