Meanings
plural yaupons · alternative yapan · alternative yopon · alternative youpon · alternative yupon · alternative yawpan · alternative yaupan
- countableuncountableThe yaupon holly, Ilex vomitoria, an evergreen holly shrub with white flowers and red or yellow berries, found in the south-eastern United States.
“I found some yaupon and made some tea. It's North America's only native caffeinated plant. Well, dahoon, but you're not gonna find that in --”
2025 February 23, Dave King, “Star-Tel-Lite” (7:25 from the start), in Common Side Effects, season 1, episode 5, spoken by Marshall Cuso (Dave King)1 more example
Yaupon is evergreen like the American holly and the familiar hollies of Christmas decorations, but the leaves of yaupon are small and smooth-edged rather than prickly. Easy to chew and blandly tasty, they would not stand out in a tossed salad.
2002, Connie C. Barlow, The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms - countableuncountableA tea-like drink, "black drink", brewed from the leaves of this holly (or, sometimes, Ilex cassine).
Origin
From a Catawba word, most likely yap, yop, yą (“tree”), with the second element being either a diminutive suffix or pą (“leaf”) (resulting in the compound yąpą); alternatively, perhaps directly from a longer form of the word for leaf, 'yap'hâ.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
yaupon. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yaupon
“yaupon.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yaupon. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “yaupon,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/yaupon.
Source: yaupon on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.