tapioca

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Portuguese tapioca, from Old Tupi tapi'oka.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /tæpiˈoʊkə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

tapioca (countable and uncountable, plural tapiocas)

1. A starchy food made from the cassava plant, used in puddings.

   Synonyms: cassava, manioc

   • 2009, Edna Staebler, Food That Really Schmecks, Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, →ISBN, page 286:

     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.

   • 2021 April 16, Kellen Browning, “Another Unlikely Pandemic Shortage: Boba Tea”, in The New York Times‎, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     It happened when beverage aficionados learned that tapioca, the starch used to make the sweet, round, chewy black bubbles — or pearls — that are the featured topping in the popular boba tea drink, was in short supply.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

2. The cassava plant, Manihot esculenta, from which tapioca is derived; manioc.
   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 270:

     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.

Derived terms

• pearl tapioca
• tapioca fish
• tapioca pearl
• tapioca pudding
• tapioca starch

Descendants

• → Maori: tapioka
• → Marshallese: tapioka
• → Tagalog: tapyoka

Translations

starchy food from cassava

Armenian: տապիոկա (tapioka) Belarusian: тапіёка f (tapijóka) Bengali: ট্যাপিওকা (ṭêpiōka) Burmese: သာဂူ (my) (sagu) Central Dusun: mundok Chinese: Hokkien: 樹薯 / 树薯 (chhiū-chî, chhiū-chû) Mandarin: 木薯 (zh) (mùshǔ) Coastal Kadazan: mundok Czech: tapioka f Dutch: tapioca (nl) Esperanto: tapioko Finnish: tapioka French: couac (fr) m, tapioca (fr) m German: Tapioka f Greek: ταπιόκα f (tapióka) Hindi: साबूदाना (hi) m (sābūdānā) Hungarian: tápióka (hu) Indonesian: tapioka (id), kanji (id) Interlingua: tapioca Irish: taipióca f Italian: tapioca (it) f Japanese: タピオカ (ja) (tapioka) Korean: 타피오카 (tapioka) Lao: please add this translation if you can Malay: ubi kayu, kaspe (ms), singkong (ms), sampa, ubi sampa, ubi jenderal, ubi perancis Maltese: tapjoka f Maori: tapioka Marathi: साबुदाणा m (sābudāṇā) Polish: tapioka (pl) f Portuguese: tapioca (pt) f, polvilho (pt) m Romanian: tapiocă (ro) f Russian: тапио́ка (ru) f (tapióka) Spanish: tapioca (es) Sundanese: sampeu (su), singkong Swedish: tapioka (sv) c Tagalog: tapyoka Tamil: ஆளுவல்லி (āḷuvalli) Thai: แป้งมันสำปะหลัง (bpâengman sămbpàlăng), แป้งมัน (bpɛ̂ɛng-man) Telugu: కర్రపెండలం (karrapeṇḍalaṁ) Turkish: tapyoka (tr) Ukrainian: тапіо́ка f (tapióka) Vietnamese: bột báng

Further reading

• tapioca on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

French

French Wikipedia has an article on:

tapioca

Wikipedia ^fr

Etymology

Borrowed from Portuguese tapioca.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ta.pjɔ.ka/

• Audio (France):

  (file)

Noun

tapioca m (plural tapiocas)

1. tapioca

Descendants

• → Ottoman Turkish: تاپیوقا
  • Turkish: tapyoka
• → Romanian: tapiocă

Further reading

• “tapioca”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Italian Wikipedia has an article on:

tapioca

Wikipedia ^it

Etymology

Borrowed from Portuguese tapioca.

Noun

tapioca f (plural tapioche)

1. tapioca

Anagrams

• apatico, atopica, capotai, copiata, opacati, opacità

Portuguese

Portuguese Wikipedia has an article on:

tapioca

Wikipedia ^pt

Etymology

Borrowed from Old Tupi tapi'oka.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ta.piˈɔ.kɐ/ [ta.pɪˈɔ.kɐ], (faster pronunciation) /taˈpjɔ.kɐ/

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ta.piˈɔ.kɐ/ [ta.pɪˈɔ.kɐ], (faster pronunciation) /taˈpjɔ.kɐ/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /ta.piˈɔ.ka/ [ta.pɪˈɔ.ka], (faster pronunciation) /taˈpjɔ.ka/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /tɐˈpjɔ.kɐ/

• Rhymes: -ɔkɐ
• Hyphenation: ta‧pi‧o‧ca

Noun

tapioca f (plural tapiocas)

1. tapioca (starchy food made from cassava)
2. (cooking) crepe made with tapioca, served with various fillings, often meat or cheese

Descendants

• → Armenian: տապիոկա (tapioka)
• → Esperanto: tapioko
• → English: tapioca
  • → Maori: tapioka
  • → Marshallese: tapioka
  • → Tagalog: tapyoka
• → Finnish: tapioka
• → French: tapioca
  • → Ottoman Turkish: تاپیوقا
    • Turkish: tapyoka
  • → Romanian: tapiocă
• → German: Tapioka
• → Indonesian: tapioka
• → Japanese: タピオカ
• → Korean: 타피오카 (tapioka)
• → Spanish: tapioca

See also

• polvilho

Further reading

• “tapioca”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2025
• “tapioca”, in Dicionário infopédia da Lingua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025
• “tapioca”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025

Spanish

Spanish Wikipedia has an article on:

tapioca

Wikipedia ^es

Etymology

Borrowed from Portuguese tapioca.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /taˈpjoka/ [t̪aˈpjo.ka]
• Rhymes: -oka
• Syllabification: ta‧pio‧ca

Noun

tapioca f (plural tapiocas)

1. tapioca

Derived terms

• perlas de tapioca

Further reading

• “tapioca”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024