popolo

plural popolos

1. Hawaiicountableuncountableblack nightshade (Solanum nigrum).

   He turned and went back at the call of the messenger, taking some popolo fruit and leaves in his cloak.

   2011, William D. Westervelt, Hawaiian Legends of Ghosts and Ghost-Gods, →ISBN

   3 more examples

   The only lack of Kalelealuaka and his comrades was animal food (literally fish) but they supplied its place as well as they could with such herbs as the tender leaves of the popolo, which they cooked like spinach, and with inamona made from the roasted nuts of the kukui tree.

   1883, All about Hawaii, page 36

   Popolo is a branching green herb with a tendency to being woody at the base. This annual grows one to three feet high on cultivated land and is regarded as a common weed.

   1975, L. R. McBride, Practical folk medicine of Hawaii, page 67

   This mite was collected at the Maui Community College agricultural field (Kahului) on popolo berry on 19 July 1995 by C. McGrath.

   1998, Hawaiian Entomological Society, Proceedings of the Hawaiian Entomological Society

2. HawaiicountablepejorativeslangsometimesA black person.

   Well, I'm a Hawaiian, but my father was a black-assed popolo—a Portuguese from Bravas, Cabo Verde Islands, who changed his name.

   2004, Miles M. Jackson, Social Process in Hawaii - Volume 43, page 92

   3 more examples

   When he gets to third, Fe'ao is excited. He sees Curaçao's thir baseman, Denjerick Virginie, starting at him as he slaps his hands together. "What you looking at, popolo?" he barks.

   2007, Charles Euchner, Little League, Big Dreams, →ISBN

   I think that most people in Hawaii agree with my mother-in-law's view of Barry as a good Hawaiian boy; a popolo Hawaiian boy, but a Hawaiian boy nonetheless.

   2010, Dave Burgess, A Tale of Two Brothers, →ISBN, page 176

   There was a racial order that existed even in this group of tweens. They teased that Chad and I were popolo, Hawaiian slang for black people. Popolo are shiny berries that grow in clusters in the islands and are so black that they shine purple on branches.

   2014, Janet Mock, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More, →ISBN