toadstool
Americannoun
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toadstools
plural
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any of various mushrooms having a stalk with an umbrellalike cap, especially the agarics.
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a poisonous mushroom, as distinguished from an edible one.
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any of various other fleshy fungi, as the puffballs and coral fungi.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of toadstool
First recorded in 1350–1400, toadstool is from the Middle English word tadstol. See toad, stool
Explanation
A toadstool might sound like something you'd find a fairy living under, but it's really just a poisonous mushroom. If you're walking in the woods and see especially colorful, mushrooms, they're probably toadstools. In other words, it's not a good idea to eat them. You can use the terms mushroom and toadstool interchangeably — although most people save toadstool for fairy tales and poisonous fungi; it's not a scientific term. The root is probably just the creative combination of the Middle English tadde, "toad," and stole, "stool."
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.
See Examples For:
Is it a “fruiting body,” better known as the toadstool, that emerges from the ground in a panoply of shapes and textures?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2025
Kind of like an Alice in Wonderland toadstool, only made of tender cake and studded with jammy blueberries.
From Salon ● Sep. 12, 2021
He has named the toadstool, Cortinarius heatherae, after his wife Heather.
From BBC ● Dec. 17, 2020
And I realized very quickly I had to do more to engage them than just sitting there on the toadstool looking pretty.
From Slate ● Mar. 27, 2020
“Oh, it’s a Gurdyroot,” she said, stuffing the cat litter and the toadstool back into her bag.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
Stories multiply like toadstools in forest loam in the fiction of Thomas Pynchon, America’s most devout skeptic of the narrative urge, yet also one of its greatest exponents.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
When Stamets talks about mushrooms, or is photographed with mushrooms, they’re typically toadstools, but he also points to evidence indicating that mycelium has higher overall levels of active ingredients than the fruiting bodies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2025
It doesn’t take long for the bigger cabbages to look like bolted toadstools on steroids.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 16, 2023
The toadstools live in harmony with trees, helping the likes of oak, beech, birch and pine absorb water and nutrients.
From BBC ● Dec. 17, 2020
He told the senior forester, who roared with laughter, then asked him if he had seen any elves skipping around toadstools too?
From "The Incredible Journey" by Sheila Burnford
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.
