yaupon

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From a Catawba word, most likely yap, yop, yą (“tree”), with the second element being either a diminutive suffix[2] or pą (“leaf”) (resulting in the compound yąpą); alternatively, perhaps directly from a longer form of the word for leaf, 'yap'hâ.[3]

Pronunciation

Noun

yaupon (countable and uncountable, plural yaupons)

  1. The yaupon holly, Ilex vomitoria, an evergreen holly shrub with white flowers and red or yellow berries, found in the south-eastern United States.
    • 2002, Connie C. Barlow, The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms:
      Yaupon is evergreen like the American holly and the familiar hollies of Christmas decorations, but the leaves of yaupon are small and smooth-edged rather than prickly. Easy to chew and blandly tasty, they would not stand out in a tossed salad.
    • 2025 February 23, Dave King, “Star-Tel-Lite” (7:25 from the start), in Common Side Effects‎[1], season 1, episode 5, spoken by Marshall Cuso (Dave King):
      “I found some yaupon and made some tea. It's North America's only native caffeinated plant. Well, dahoon, but you're not gonna find that in --”
  2. A tea-like drink, "black drink", brewed from the leaves of this holly (or, sometimes, Ilex cassine).

See also

References

  1. ^ yaupon, yopon, youpon, yupon at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
  2. ^ Frederick Webb Hodge, Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico: N-Z (1912): The name is from Catawba yopun [yopún], a diminutive of yop, 'tree,' 'shrub.'
  3. ^ W. R. Gerard, Plant Names of Indian Origin, V., in Garden and Forest, volume 9 (1896)

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