Tapioca
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A starchy food made from the cassava plant, used in puddings. countable, uncountable
"Fish eyes and glue we used to call the half-cooked, large-grained, starchy tapioca without flavour that we were served every week in our residence at university. How I longed for the creamy pudding Mother used to make."
- 2 granular preparation of cassava starch used to thicken especially puddings wordnet
- 3 The cassava plant, Manihot esculenta, from which tapioca is derived; manioc. countable, uncountable
"When the entire coast-line becomes a sea of waving palms, with Chinese and Malay villages fringing the shores, which are at present mere barren wastes of mangroves, with plantations of pepper, of gambier, and of tapioca and rice, the Northern Territory, backed up by the unswerving energy of the Australian squatter, miner, and planter, will present a spectacle almost unknown in the scheme of British colonization."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Look at the instructions on the package of tapioca that you buy."
Etymology
Borrowed from Portuguese tapioca, from Old Tupi tapi'oka.
Related phrases
More for "tapioca"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.