ground provisions

English

Ground provisions for sale at a supermarket in Trinidad

Noun

ground provisions pl (plural only)

1. (Caribbean, Guyana, Jamaica) Starchy staple vegetables grown in the ground such as yam, taro, cassava and sweet potato.

   Synonym: ground food

   Hypernym: hard food

   • 1775, Richard Glover, The Substance of the Evidence on the Petition Presented by the West-India Planters and Merchants‎^[1], London, page 40:

     In Barbadoes, I doubt whether the corn, (it is Indian corn not wheat) and the ground provisions (I mean yams, and other roots) raised in the island, are sufficient to maintain the inhabitants for three months […]

   • 1890, Edgar Mayhew Bacon, Eugene Murray Aaron, The New Jamaica‎^[2], New York: Walbridge, page 174:

     There is little cane grown in St. Mary: most of the cultivation is in fruit and ground provisions.

   • 1912, James Rodway, chapter 2, in Guiana: British, Dutch, and French‎^[3], London: T. Fisher Unwin, page 59:

     Thirty Arawak Indians were brought to teach the English how to plant cassava, yams, and other ground provisions […]

   • 2009, Elizabeth Nunez, chapter 7, in Anna In-Between‎^[4], New York: Akashic Books, pages 82–83:

     Lydia has made stewed chicken, rice, string beans, and the ground provisions that Mr. Sinclair likes: dasheen, cassava, and sweet potatoes.

Usage notes

• The term sometimes also refers to other starchy foods that grow above the ground, such as plantain and breadfruit.