toadstool

[ tohd-stool ]

/ ˈtoʊdˌstul /

noun

any of various mushrooms having a stalk with an umbrellalike cap, especially the agarics.

a poisonous mushroom, as distinguished from an edible one.

any of various other fleshy fungi, as the puffballs and coral fungi.

Nearby words

toadeater, toadfish, toadflax, toadshade, toadstone, toadstool, toady, toamasina, toast, toast rack, toaster

Origin of toadstool

First recorded in 1350–1400, toadstool is from the Middle English word tadstol. See toad, stool

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for toadstool

The verse sprawls like the trees, dances like the dust; it is ragged like the thunder-cloud, it is top-heavy like the toadstool.
Robert Browning|G. K. Chesterton
Here and there a toadstool thrust up its speckled top, flaming its red all unashamed.
Wanderers|Knut Hamsun
I thought maybe it had growed up from the soil like a toadstool.
The Boy Scouts Book of Stories|Various
Popular discrimination between "toadstool" and "mushroom," 16-22; popular distrust of fungi, 15.
Our Edible Toadstools and Mushrooms and How to Distinguish Them|William Hamilton Gibson

But the conquest of the Toadstool was harder than she expected.
The Jolliest Term on Record|Angela Brazil

British Dictionary definitions for toadstool

toadstool

/ (ˈtəʊdˌstuːl) /

noun

(not in technical use) any basidiomycetous fungus with a capped spore-producing body that is not edibleCompare mushroom (def. 1a)

Word Origin for toadstool

C14: from toad + stool

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

toadstool

noun

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Nearby words

Origin of toadstool

Examples from the Web for toadstool

British Dictionary definitions for toadstool

toadstool

noun

Word Origin for toadstool