mushroom
pronunciation
How to pronounce mushroom in British English:
UK [ˈmʌʃrʊm]
How to pronounce mushroom in American English:
US [ˈmʌʃrʊm]
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- Noun:
- common name for an edible agaric (contrasting with the inedible toadstool)
- any of various fleshy fungi of the subdivision Basidiomycota consisting of a cap at the end of a stem arising from an underground mycelium
- a large cloud of rubble and dust shaped like a mushroom and rising into the sky after an explosion (especially of a nuclear bomb)
- fleshy body of any of numerous edible fungi
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- Verb:
- pick or gather mushrooms
- grow and spread fast
Word Origin
- mushroom (n.)
- mid-15c., muscheron, musseroun (attested 1327 as a surname, John Mussheron), from Anglo-French musherun, Old French meisseron (11c., Modern French mousseron), perhaps from Late Latin mussirionem (nominative mussirio), though this might as well be borrowed from French. Barnhart says "of uncertain origin." Klein calls it "a word of pre-Latin origin, used in the North of France;" OED says it usually is held to be a derivative of French mousse "moss" (from Germanic), and Weekley agrees, saying it is properly "applied to variety which grows in moss," but Klein says they have "nothing in common." For the final -m Weekley refers to grogram, vellum, venom. Modern spelling is from 1560s. Used figuratively for something or someone that makes a sudden appearance in full form from 1590s. In reference to the shape of clouds after explosions, etc., it is attested from 1916, though the actual phrase mushroom cloud does not appear until 1955.
- mushroom (v.)
- "expand or increase rapidly," 1741, from mushroom (n.). Related: Mushroomed; mushrooming.