potato
A round vegetable with brown, yellow, or red skin and white or yellow inside that people cook and eat.
A round or oval starchy tuber of the plant Solanum tuberosum, widely grown and eaten as a staple food.
A person who does not move much and stays sitting for a long time, especially watching TV.
An informal term for a person who spends a lot of time being physically inactive, often watching television or staying indoors.
- Base: potato
- Plural: potato, potatoes
hot potato
1Difficult or controversial issue
A problem or question that is hard to deal with because many people have strong feelings about it.
- The new tax law is a political hot potato.
- That topic is a hot potato—let's avoid it for now.
meat and potatoes
1Basic essential part
The most important or basic part of something.
- Let's get to the meat and potatoes of the meeting.
- The meat and potatoes of his job are customer service and sales.
small potatoes
1Something unimportant or minor
Something that is not important when compared to something bigger or more serious.
- The money we lost is small potatoes compared to our total profits.
- Losing one client is small potatoes in this industry.
couch potato
1A very inactive TV watcher
A person who spends a lot of time sitting and watching TV without doing much else.
- Don't be such a couch potato—let's go for a walk.
- Since getting that streaming subscription, he's become a real couch potato.
- He's turned into a real couch potato since retiring.
- I don't want to spend my holiday as a couch potato.