potato
/pəˈteɪ.toʊ/noun, verb, interjection
potato is spelled P-O-T-A-T-O. The wrong spelling people search most is potatoe: about 1,770 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Potato is a noun meaning “The edible starchy tuber of the plant species Solanum tuberosum”. The plural of potato is potatoes.
How many letters and syllables are in potato?
| Letters | 6: P-O-T-A-T-O |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 13 times per million words; the 5,957th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, potatoe, about 1,770 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell potato?
Potato is spelled P-O-T-A-T-O. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for potato in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is potato?
Potato appears 13 times per million words in written English, the 5,957th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce potato?
- /pəˈteɪ.təʊ/
- US /pəˈteɪ.toʊ/
- US [-ˈteɪ.ɾoʊ]
Potato has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-potato.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Nattes_à_chat-potato.wav, En-us-potato.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with potato?
One word on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as potato from its last stressed vowel (/eɪtoʊ/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of potato
- potatoes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- potatoing participle, present
- potatoed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does potato mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The edible starchy tuber of the plant species Solanum tuberosum.
What was that about potatoes? Were they just a thing from foreign parts, like coffee; a luxury, an extra? Oh, the potato is a lordly fruit; drought or downpour, it grows and grows all the same. It laughs at the weather, and will stand anyth
- 2
The plant that produces this tuber.
- 3
obsoleteA sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas).
- 4
UKinformalA conspicuous hole in a sock or stocking.
- 5
derogatoryA person or animal shaped like a potato, that is, with a large belly and/or short legs.
- 6
Metaphor for a person or thing of little value.
- 7
offensiveslangA mentally handicapped person.
- 8
A camera that takes poor-quality pictures or videos.
verb
- 1
slangTo hit very hard; to pummel.
- 2
To hit with a thrown or fired potato.
interjection
- 1
The rhythmic sound produced by a V-twin engine–a distinctive deep, throaty exhaust note.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Potato in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense plant tuber eaten as starchy vegetable:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | pomme de terre, patate |
| German | Kartoffel, Erdapfel, Grumbeere, Erdbirne, Grundbirne, Bramburi |
| Portuguese | batata |
| Spanish | patata, papa, chuño, tunta |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does potato come from?
Borrowed from Spanish patata, itself borrowed from Taíno batata (“sweet potato”). Doublet of batata.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).