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Arrowroot is a white powder made from the underground parts of a tropical American plant. Cooks stir a little into a sauce or a pudding to make it thick and glossy, in the same job as . It has almost no taste of its own, and it can leave a sauce looking clear rather than cloudy. You still see it in older recipes, in some baby food, and in gluten-free baking. In a lot of home kitchens it has become a rather special-bag ingredient. Though actually the English name looks like arrow + root, and people did use the plant on wounds from poison darts, to soak up the poison — but that is not how the word truly began. The older name comes from Lokono, a Caribbean language, and English speakers reshaped it to sound like words they already knew.
竹芋粉（勾芡用。台灣廚房日常更常說太白粉，那是另一種粉）
組成From Lokono aru-aru, literally “meal of meals.” English speakers heard it as arrow + root, partly because the plant’s rhizomes — not true roots — were used on wounds from poison arrows. The spelling is folk reshaping, not a true arrow-word like arrowhead.
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
arrowrootnoun/ˈæɹə(ʊ)ɹuːt/
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Maranta arundinacea from the Marantaceae family, a large perennial herb native to the Caribbean area with green leaves about 15 centimeters long.
- The East India arrowroot was considered the best; and the French West India arrowroot not so good. The East India arrowroot had the finest grains; the second finest were those from the potato; and third the tous les mois or French West India arrowroot; […]
- Arrowroots were introduced into the area in early 1983 by an elderly citizen known as Mr. Awondo, who brought it from Central Kenya where it is planted in the moist river beds. […] Arrowroots thrive where there is enough moisture in the soil for its normal growth and development.
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Usually preceded by an attributive word: some other plant whose rhizomes are used to prepare a substance similar to arrowroot (sense 3), such as Zamia integrifolia (Florida arrowroot) or Pueraria montana var. lobata (Japanese arrowroot or kudzu).
- Arrowroot (pia) is a member of the Tacca family. […] The ancient Hawaiians used the arrowroot (pia) as a food and as a medicine.
- The root tubers of Japanese arrowroot can be used either in fresh dried form after cooking in a manner similar to other root crops. The fresh roots are used for the extraction of starch (kudzu powder). […] Japanese arrowroot plant foliage is also a palatable fodder for farm cattle in the form of hay, pasture or silage, especially in the off season.
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A starchy substance obtained from the rhizomes of an arrowroot plant used as a thickener.
- Dr. Ifill could state, with certainty, that all the arrow-root imported into this country from Barbadoes, was made from the maranta; […] The difference in the quality of the arrow-roots imported into this country, depended on the care which had been employed in the preparation. The greater number of times the fecula was washed, the purer it would be.
- [page 396] Arrowroot is the fecula of Maran′ta arundina′cea or West Indian arrowroot; Sex. Syst. Monandria Monogynia; Nat. Ord. Marantaceæ; a plant, which is a native of South America and the West Indies, where it is largely cultivated in gardens and provision grounds. The tubers or roots are beaten into a pulp, stirred with cold water, removing the fibres with the hand; the milky juice is passed through a fine sieve, and the starch is allowed to subside in the strained fluid. The fecula is then washed, and dried without heat. This is the Arrowroot. […] [pages 397–398] As an aliment, arrowroot is considered to be less nutritive than wheaten starch, but more palatable and digestible. […] Boiled in water or milk, it is a very common, and favourite aliment in febrile and inflammatory affections, in chronic diseases, and in convalescence from the acute.
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Other plants with similar appearance or properties, such as common yarrow (Achillea millefolium)|
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。