fungicide
Americannoun
noun
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A pesticide used to kill fungi, especially those that cause disease. Streptomycin is a fungicide.
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Compare herbicide insecticide rodenticide
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of fungicide
Explanation
Any substance that's used to kill spores is a fungicide. If your beautiful roses are dying because mildew is attacking their leaves, you might need to spray them with a fungicide. The word fungicide is formed by taking fungus, "a mushroom" in Latin, and adding the suffix -cide, or "killer." So just like matricide means killing one's mother and pesticide means something that kills bugs, fungicide means something that kills fungi. Whether you have a fungus growing on your bathroom ceiling or your tomato plants, you probably need a fungicide to get rid of it.
Vocabulary lists containing fungicide
Microbiology - High School
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Microbiology - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The cost for treating oak wilt, or any tree disease that requires a fungicide injection, depends on the tree’s diameter at breast height, or DBH.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026
In the study, published in the journal Environmental Epigenetics, an initial generation of pregnant rats was exposed to a common fungicide, then their progeny to jet fuel and the following generation to DDT.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 23, 2024
Every time a banana tree sprouts a leaf, it's newly vulnerable to fungal infection, so farmers spray fungicide from crop dusters and enclose growing fruits in plastic bags loaded with insecticide to deter bugs.
From Scientific American ● Sep. 22, 2023
This knowledge could let growers respond quickly with fungicide or stopping irrigation to slow or prevent a severe outbreak.
From Salon ● May 31, 2023
Or can we use a nonspecific fungicide without also killing the fungi that inhabit the roots of many trees in a beneficial association that aids the tree in extracting nutrients from the soil?
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
