Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A Hawaiian food made from the tuber of the taro that is cooked, pounded to a paste, and fermented.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An article of food of the Sandwich Islanders, prepared from the root of the taro, Colocasia antiquorum. After being mixed with water, the taro-root is beaten with a pestle till it becomes an adhesive mass like dough; it is then fermented, and in three or four days is fit for use. Also
poe .C. W. Stoddard, South Sea Idyls, p. 135. - In music, then; later: as, adagio poi allegro, slowly, then quickly; or poi segue, then follows.
Wiktionary
- n. A national food of the Hawaiians, made by baking and pounding the kalo (or taro) root, and reducing it to a thin paste, which is allowed to ferment.
- n. A pair of roughly arm-length chains with loop handles attached to one end and bundle of wicking material on the other used in fire dancing (fire spinning). Poi used for practice may also consist of a fabric streamer with a light weight, such as a beanbag, at the leading edge.
- adj. few; little
- adv. little; not much
- pro. few; not many (people, objects etc.)
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A national food of the Hawaiians, made by baking and pounding the kalo (or taro) root, and reducing it to a thin paste, which is allowed to ferment.
WordNet 3.0
- n. Hawaiian dish of taro root pounded to a paste and often allowed to ferment
Etymologies
- Hawaiian.
Examples
“I play drums, spin poi, staff, and hoop at overton park every week and i have never seen another hooper! where are these girls?!”
“I spin poi and so understand the weave BUT trying it a bit on my hoops proved painful.”
“Drex, who has a background in poi spinning, teaches us how to do cateyes with a hoop.”
“Poi was created by the Maori people of New Zealand and the word poi can refer to the physical object, the choreography and the accompanying music.”
“a little water is poured on it, when it is reduced to a paste called poi, which is then fit to eat.”
“The brief duty visit over, Martha arose and accompanied her back to the bungalow, putting money into her hand, commanding proud and beautiful Japanese housemaids to wait upon the dilapidated aborigine with poi, which is compounded of the roots of the water lily, with iamaka, which is raw fish, and with pounded kukui nut and limu, which latter is seawood tender to the toothless, digestible and savoury.”
“Mashed taro (the tuber used to make the island specialty known as poi) is the de rigueur replacement for ordinary mashed potatoes, and coconut-creme-spinach sauce is as ubiquitous as brown gravy at a Southern truck stop.”
“In Hawaii, crushed and fermented, and called poi, they were ever the main food.”
“In Tahiti it has been largely replaced by cassava starch in the preparation of 'poi'.”
“In Tahiti, they are used to make 'poi' ( 'poke' in the Cook Islands), a traditional food which consists of a mixture of fruit pulp and starch, flavoured with vanilla and lemon and cooked in an oven.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘poi’.
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Visuals
A list of words which yield surprising, beautiful, amusing, or otherwise noteworthy images here on Wordnik.
photochrom, fufluns, thank you, cool l..., postcard, picture postcard, cricket, physiological ill..., Gakuryū Ishii, ametropia, One Froggy Evening, rhodopsin, Santiago Calatrava and 624 more...
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Things people might attempt to juggle
balls, chainsaws, cats, responsibilities, clubs, beanbags, fire torches, knives, oranges, cigar boxes, scarves, pineapples and 107 more...
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Words That Can Be Typed Entirely With The Right...
Words made of the following: yuiopghjklbnm. I've stood on the shoulders of giants... users mollusque and reesetee made similar lists before I even existed on Wordnik. :)
you, kill, hippy, milky, mop, lily, yolk, puppy, oily, knoll, poi, hypophyllium
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root tips and other ends
stolon, circinate, calyptrogen, meristem, verticil, fusiform, telomere, skirret, relbun, turpeth, galangal, vetiver and 54 more...
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wambamthankumam
Prolagus Italian for then.
(I visited this page only because Mozilla's spell check didn't mark it while I was writing in Italian) Aug 23, 2008