MUSHROOM • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Mushroom

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/mˈəʃrum/ Listen

noun

Mushroom n.

(Bot.)

(a)

An edible fungus (Agaricus campestris), having a white stalk which bears a convex or oven flattish expanded portion called the pileus. This is whitish and silky or somewhat scaly above, and bears on the under side radiating gills which are at first flesh-colored, but gradually become brown. The plant grows in rich pastures and is proverbial for rapidity of growth and shortness of duration. It has a pleasant smell, and is largely used as food. It is also cultivated from spawn.

(b)

Any large fungus developing a visible fruiting body with a stem and cap, usu. of the basidiomycetes; especially One of the genus Agaricus; a toadstool. Several species are edible; but many are very poisonous. The term mushroom is used most often for edible varieties, the poisonous ones being termed toadstools or other names. But this distinction is often ignored.

One who rises suddenly from a low condition in life; an upstart.

verb

mushroom v. i.

To grow or expand rapidly.

To grow so much and so rapidly as to change qualitatively; used with into; as, a minor border skirmish mushroomed into a full-blown war.

adjective

Mushroom adj.

Of or pertaining to mushrooms; as, mushroom catchup.

Resembling mushrooms in rapidity of growth and shortness of duration; short-lived; ephemerial; as, mushroom cities.

Mushroom anchor, an anchor shaped like a mushroom, capable of grasping the ground in whatever way it falls.

Mushroom coral (Zool.), any coral of the genus Fungia. See Fungia.

Mushroom spawn (Bot.), the mycelium, or primary filamentous growth, of the mushroom; also, cakes of earth and manure containing this growth, which are used for propagation of the mushroom.

mushroom cloud, a cloud of smoke rising and then spreading laterally to take on the shape of a mushroom caused by large fires or explosions, esp. nuclear explosions.

See images of 'Mushroom'

Etymology of 'Mushroom'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Mushroom" Quotes from Famous Books

... dead, look down On smaller fry unworthy of the crown, Mere mushroom men, puff-balls that advertise And bravely think to brush the skies. Great is advertisement with little men! Moi, qui vous parle, L- G-ll—nn-, Have told them so; ...

— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman

... and in the still later {10} Klondike stampede, American cities at the coast benefited most. Victoria was a ten-hour trip from the mainland. Whatcom and Townsend, on the American side, advertised the advantages of the Washington route to the Fraser river gold-mines. A mushroom boom in town lots had sprung up at these points before Victoria was well awake. By the time speculators reached Victoria the best lots in that place had already been bought by the company's men; and some ...

— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut

... of wonders. The tiniest mushroom is as extraordinary and as worthy of study as the largest oak. Your father was fond ...

— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... in Greece, when in Athens, the great forum of Socrates, in whom subjectivity of thought was brought to consciousness in a more definite and more thorough manner, now appeared. But Socrates did not grow like a mushroom out of the earth, for he extends in continuity with his time, and this is not only a most important figure in the history of philosophy—but perhaps also a ...

— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... bomb-shell had fallen among them. Maria had closed her eyes again. Her face was calm as a cabbage, still as a mushroom in a storm. She claimed the entire discussion somehow as her own. Yet she had merely exercised her prerogative of being herself. Having gone into the root of the matter with a monosyllable, she retired again into her eternal centre. She had nothing ...

— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

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