tommytoe
A little tomato, especially a cherry or volunteer garden tomato.
Also called tommyto, tommy-toe, tommy toes.
Updated September 24, 2026
tommytoe pronunciation
/TOM-ee-toe/
Meaning
Tommytoes are the small sweet ones that pop in your mouth. Cherry tomatoes from the store count, and so do the volunteer plants that come up where last year's peelings got dumped. In Appalachian gardens the word sticks hard; folks still brag on a vine loaded with tommytoes.
How folks use it
- “We picked a whole bucket of tommytoes off one vine.”
- “Those tommytoes taste better than anything from the store.”
Origin and etymology
A dialect reshaping of tomato, recorded in Southern and South Midland speech. Dictionary.com ties tommyto chiefly to Tennessee and Georgia for cherry tomatoes. DARE and Appalachian sources treat tommytoe the same way. The OED lists the form from the 1830s as a variant of tomato.
Frequently asked questions
Is a tommytoe any tomato?
Usually the small ones. Big slicing tomatoes are just tomatoes; tommytoes are the little sweet ones.