▪ I. toadstool, n.
(ˈtəʊdstuːl)
Forms: see toad and stool.
[f. toad n. + stool, a fanciful name; cf. Sc. paddo' stool.]
A fungus having a round disk-like top and a slender stalk, a mushroom.
| α 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvi. xxxi. (Tollem. MS.), It setteþ drye tadstoles a fyre. 1483 Cath. Angl. 377/1 A Tade stole, boletus, fungus. 1578 Lyte Dodoens 261 Them that are sicke with eating of venimous Tadstooles or Mousheroms. 1594 T. B. La Primaud, Fr. Acad. ii. 97 Soft & like to the substance of a tad-stoole. 1601 Bp. W. Barlow Serm. Paules Crosse 50 Like the growth of a Tadstoole..a night's conceit, but vanished in the morning. |
| β 1495 Trevisa's Barth. De P.R. xvii. cxxiv. (W. de W.), Yf perys ben sodde wyth tode stoles they take awaye fro them all greyf and malyce. 1519 W. Horman Vulg. 101 b, Todestolys, that be gethered from the tree be good to eate. 1530 Palsgr. 281/2 Tode stole, eschampignon. 1562 Turner Herbal ii. Pref., Dark doctores..which soddenly lyke todestolles stert vp Phisiciones. Ibid. 29 b, A todstole..in a birche or a walnut tre, where of som make tunder. 1567 J. Maplet Gr. Forest 52 The Mushrom or Toadstoole..hath two sundrie kinds,..for the one may be eaten: the other is not to be eaten. 1579 Spenser Sheph. Cal. Dec. 69 The grieslie Todestoole growne there mought I se And loathed Paddocks lording on the same. 1601 Holland Pliny (1634) II. 133 The nearer that a Mushrome or Toadstoole commeth to the color of a fig hanging vpon the tree, the lesse presumption there is that it is venomous. 1707 Hearne Collect. 29 Nov. (O.H.S.) II. 76 The Dorians..us'd to write upon Toad-stools. 1872 Black Adv. Phaeton xxii, Moist odour of toadstools and fern. 1904 G. K. Chesterton Browning vi. 145 We are akin not only to the stars and flowers, but to the toadstools and the monstrous tropical birds. |
b. Popularly restricted to poisonous or inedible fungi, as distinct from edible ‘mushrooms’.
| 1607 Topsell Four-f. Beasts (1658) 204 The rennet is also commendable against Hemlock or Toad-stool. 1805 Med. Jrnl. XIV. 573 Toad stools and other species of the fungus kind are frequently eaten for mushrooms. 1859 All Year Round No. 19. 437 The delicious mushroom, the poisonous toad-stool. |
c. fig. (in reference to its rapid growth and short duration: cf mushroom).
| 1823 in Cobbett Rur. Rides (1885) I. 286 This little toad-stool is a thing created entirely by the gamble: and the means have, hitherto, come out of the wages of labour. 1901 Daily News 2 Mar. 3/4 Some of the houses that were too solidly built to burn were blown up. Away off on a flank you would see a huge toadstool of dust, rocks, and rafters rise solemnly into the air and then subside in a heap of débris. |
d. attrib. and Comb., as toadstool-eater, toadstool-eating, toadstool-growth; toadstool-like adj.
| 1886 P. Robinson Valley Teet. Trees 137 Some of these penny-reading toadstool-eaters would even turn a toad off its stool to eat its seat. 1887 W. D. Hay Elem. Text-Bk. Brit. Fungi Pref. 6 So far as ‘toadstool eating’ goes, I believe I have a right to speak with authority, since my own gastronomic experiments have been many, frequent, and varied. 1892 Antidote 20 Sept. 303 Wretched sects of toadstool growth, which spring up, fester and die out around us. 1903 Westm. Gaz. 30 Jan. 2/1 A writing-table (in the North Room) with numerous toadstool-like projections..whose ugliness and inconvenience are only too obvious. |
▪ II. ˈtoadstool, v. rare.
[f. the n.]
intr. To grow up like a toadstool; to expand or increase rapidly and objectionably. Cf. mushroom v. 4.
| 1939 R. Campbell Flowering Rifle i. 14 As limply fungoid in the idle rich As when it grimly toadstools from a ditch. 1971 M. McCarthy Birds of America 60 New little houses had toadstooled; they passed a trailer camp. |