mushroom
/ˈmʌʃˌɹum/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.63 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of the fleshy fruiting bodies of fungi typically produced above ground on soil or on their food sources (such as decaying wood).
noun
A fungus producing such fruiting bodies.
noun
Champignon or Agaricus bisporus, the mushroom species most commonly used in cooking.
noun
Any of the mushroom-shaped pegs in bar billiards.
noun
Example Sentences
- "Some mushrooms are edible whereas others are poisonous, and sometimes they are difficult to tell apart."
- "Arabs consider the eating of mushrooms as an aphrodisiac aid."
- "upstarts […]call in reproach mushrooms"
- "The craze [hula hoops] began in the U.S.A., and in October the boom crossed the Atlantic and 40 firms sprang into being, some being overnight mushrooms."
- "mushroom cloud"
- "The town’s population mushroomed from 10,000 to 110,000 in five years."
Etymology
From Middle English muscheron, musseron, from Anglo-Norman musherum, moscheron, from Old French moisseron, of obscure origin: probably derived from Old French mosse, moise ("moss"; whence also French mousse), as the use first applied to a type of fungus which grows in moss, from Frankish *mosu (“moss”) or Old Dutch *mosa (“moss”), akin to Old High German mosa (“moor, swamp”), Old High German mos (“moss, bog”), Old High German mios (“moss, mire”), Old English mēos (“moss”), Old English mōs (“bog, marsh”), Old Norse mosi (“moss”), Old Norse myrr (“bog, mire”), from Proto-Germanic *musą, *musô, *miuziz (“mosses, bog”), from Proto-Indo-European *mews- (“mosses, mold, mildew”). Displaced native Old English swamm. More at mire. Alternatively, the Old French may be of pre-Roman origin. See Ancient Greek μύκης (múkēs, “mushroom”). Doublet of moss and mousse.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈmʌʃˌɹum/
- British English: /ˈmʌʃˌɹuːm/