U.S. Forms: 7 tockwough, tockawhough, -waugh, 8 tuccaho, 8–9 tuckahoo, 7– tuckahoe. [ad. Powhatan or Virginian (N. Amer. Indian) tockawhoughe, app. cognate with Mohegan tquogh, Shawnee tukwhah. Webster (1911), compares Natick petukqunneg cake of bread, f. petukqui round, Cree pitikwaw made round.]
1. A name applied by North American Indians (esp. of Virginia) to edible roots of various plants: see Report of Smithsonian Inst., 1881, pp. 687–701.
1612. Capt. Smith, Map Virginia, 22. In Iune, Iulie, and August they feede vpon the rootes of Tockwough [printed -nough], berries, fish and greene wheat.
1612. Proc. Virginia, 67, in Capt. Smith’s Wks. (Arb.), 155. Others would gather as much Tockwough roots in a day as would make them bread a weeke.
1662. Laws of Virginia, cxxxvi. 77. The poor Indians, whom, the seating of the English, hath forced from their wonted Conveniences of … gathering Tuckahoe, Cortenions, and other Wild-Fruits.
1671. Ogilby, Amer., 196. Their peculiar roots are the tockawaugh, good to eat [etc.].
a. Among these are or were the thick and starchy root-stocks of certain araceous plants, particularly Peltandra undulata or Virginica (formerly Arum Virginicum), the Arrow Arum, and Orontium aquaticum, the Golden-Club.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, VIII. v. 635. [The aborigines of Virginia] haue two rootes;… the other called Tockawhough, growing like a flagge, of the greatnesse and tast of a Potato, which passeth a fierie purgation before they may eate it, being poison while it is raw.
1705. Beverley, Virginia, III. iv. (1722), 153. A tuberous Root they call Tuckahoe, which while crude is of a very hot and virulent Quality: But they can manage … to make Bread of it.
1770. J. R. Forster, trans. Kalm’s Trav. N. Amer. (1772), I. 225. To judge by these qualities the Tuckahoo may very likely be the Arum Virginicum.
b. Now app. restricted to an underground tuber-like production (Pachyma Cocos, Fries, Lycoperdon solidum, Clayton), prob. the sclerotium of some fungus, parasitic on tree-roots in the southern parts of North America, the affinities of which are uncertain. Also called Indian bread, Indian loaf, Indian head, and tuckahoe truffle.
1731. Catesby, Nat. Hist. Carolina, etc., p. x. Indians also eat the earth nuts which they call tuccaho.
1782. T. Jefferson, Notes State Virginia (1787), 58. Tuckahoe. Lycoperdon tuber.
1816. in Massachusetts Spy, 23 Oct. (Thornton). The name of Tuckahoe … has also been applied to the Troffle.
1866. Treas. Bot., Tuckahoo,… a curious tuberous production,… has been referred by Fries to the genus Pachyma.
2. A nickname for the lowlands of Virginia; also for an inhabitant of this district. local U.S.
1817. J. K. Paulding, Lett. fr. South, I. x. 112. The people [west of the Blue Ridge] call those east of the mountain Tuckahoes, and their country Old Virginia.
1835. Lett. Virginia Springs (Philad.), 16–17 (Thornton). [The Blue Ridge] divides the Ancient Dominion into two nations, called Tuckahoes and Quo’hees; the former inhabiting the lowland.
1848–60. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., s.v., Tuckahoe is often applied to an inhabitant of Lower Virginia, and to the poor land in that portion of the State.
