What does "yacca" mean?

Either of two large evergreens of the West Indies, Podocarpus coriaceus and Podocarpus purdieanus.

Yacca

Common synonyms include: blackboy, blackboy, grass tree, grasstree, grasstree, podocarpus coriaceus.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Either of two large evergreens of the West Indies, Podocarpus coriaceus and Podocarpus purdieanus.
2
Any of the various Australian perennial flowering plants of the genus Xanthorrhoea. Australia
3
West Indian evergreen with medium to long leaves wordnet

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Spanish yaca, from Taíno.

Etymology 2

Transferred sense from Kaurna yagu (“pine gum”), referring to the resinous exudation from yacca trunks.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.