Library / English Dictionary

MUSHROOM

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Fleshy body of any of numerous edible fungi

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("mushroom" is a kind of...):

veg; vegetable; veggie (edible seeds or roots or stems or leaves or bulbs or tubers or nonsweet fruits of any of numerous herbaceous plant)

Holonyms ("mushroom" is a part of...):

stuffed mushroom (mushrooms stuffed with any of numerous mixtures of e.g. meats or nuts or seafood or spinach)

Derivation:

mushroom (pick or gather mushrooms)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A large cloud of rubble and dust shaped like a mushroom and rising into the sky after an explosion (especially of a nuclear bomb)

Synonyms:

mushroom; mushroom-shaped cloud; mushroom cloud

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Hypernyms ("mushroom" is a kind of...):

cloud (any collection of particles (e.g., smoke or dust) or gases that is visible)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Any of various fleshy fungi of the subdivision Basidiomycota consisting of a cap at the end of a stem arising from an underground mycelium

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("mushroom" is a kind of...):

basidiomycete; basidiomycetous fungi (any of various fungi of the subdivision Basidiomycota)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mushroom"):

morel (any of various edible mushrooms of the genus Morchella having a brownish spongelike cap)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Mushrooms and related fleshy fungi (including toadstools, puffballs, morels, coral fungi, etc.)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("mushroom" is a kind of...):

agaric (a saprophytic fungus of the order Agaricales having an umbrellalike cap with gills on the underside)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Common name for an edible agaric (contrasting with the inedible toadstool)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("mushroom" is a kind of...):

agaric (a saprophytic fungus of the order Agaricales having an umbrellalike cap with gills on the underside)

Antonym:

toadstool (common name for an inedible or poisonous agaric (contrasting with the edible mushroom))

Derivation:

mushroom (pick or gather mushrooms)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Grow and spread fast

Example:

The problem mushroomed

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "mushroom" is one way to...):

grow (become larger, greater, or bigger; expand or gain)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Pick or gather mushrooms

Example:

We went mushrooming in the Fall

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "mushroom" is one way to...):

cull; pick; pluck (look for and gather)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Sentence example:

In the summer they like to go out and mushroom

Derivation:

mushroom (fleshy body of any of numerous edible fungi)

mushroom (common name for an edible agaric (contrasting with the inedible toadstool))

Credits

 Context examples: 

A substance found in bacteria, plants, and certain foods, such as baker’s yeast, cereal grains, and mushrooms.

(Beta-glucan, NCI Dictionary)

Mushrooms, mold and mildew are examples.

(Fungal Infections, NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

Filamentous fungi refer to those that grow as multicellular colonies (mushrooms and molds).

(Fungus, NCI Thesaurus)

Instead, Mars has umbrella-shaped magnetic fields that sprout out of the ground like mushrooms, here and there, but mainly in the southern hemisphere.

(Auroras on Mars, NASA)

And yet there was the dead man and there the revolver bullet, which had mushroomed out, as soft-nosed bullets will, and so inflicted a wound which must have caused instantaneous death.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A powder formulation containing a triple helix beta-glucan, isolated from the cell walls of the shiitake mushroom (Lentinula edodes), with potential immunostimulating activity.

(Beta-Glucan MM-10-001, NCI Thesaurus)

Ah, young sir, the Szekelys—and the Dracula as their heart's blood, their brains, and their swords—can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The bees actually moved wood chips to access his mushroom’s mycelium, the branching fibers of fungus that look like cobwebs.

(Mushroom Extract Could Help Save Bees from Virus, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

A crucial finding was that neural connections link the reniform bodies to centers called mushroom bodies, iconic structures of arthropod brains that are required for olfactory learning and memory.

(How mantis shrimp make sense of the world, National Science Foundation)

An arabinoxylane polysaccharide composed of the hemicellulose-Beta extract of rice bran, treated with enzymes from Shiitake mushrooms, that exerts antitumor and antiviral activity by increasing the level of natural killer cells activation.

(MGN3, NCI Thesaurus)