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.
noun
- (not in technical use) any basidiomycetous fungus with a capped spore-producing body that is not edibleCompare mushroom (def. 1a)
n.late 14c., apparently just what it looks like: a fanciful name from Middle English tadde “toad” (see toad) + stole “stool” (see stool). Toads themselves were regarded as highly poisonous, and this word is popularly restricted to inedible or poisonous fungi, as opposed to mushrooms (e.g. toad-cheese, a poisonous fungi).