Etymology

poke salad

Today it means: A food made from boiled pokeweed leaves, which are poisonous unless cooked properly. Full definition →

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poke salad · noun1

poke (“pokeweed”) + salad or sallet. “Poke salad” and “poke sallet” mean the same thing—carefully boiled pokeweed. Uncooked pokeweed is poisonous. Given that “salad” connotes “raw,” many speakers favor the original “sallet” which connotes “cooked greens.”

poke salad · noun2

poke (“cubed raw fish”) + salad

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.