toadstool

Etymology

It is formed from Middle English tadde (“toad”) + stole (“stool, seat”),^[2][3][4] that is toad and stool,^[5][6][7] apparently as a fanciful name.^[2][5][8] Etymonline points out that toads themselves were thought highly poisonous.^[4] The OED compares the Scots paddo' stool,^[5] and the Shorter Oxford the English paddock-stool.^[9] Etymonline also compares toad-cheese, a poisonous fungus, and notes that in the “Promptorium Parvulorum” (mid-15th century) the Middle English toodys hatte glossed Latin boletus.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A fungus with a round, flat top on a slender stalk, a mushroom: before 1398, in John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus' De Proprietatibus Rerum, in the spelling tadstole.^[5][3][7]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English Dictionary records the word both for a mushroom and for a poisonous one, and also for a parasitic herb.^[7] The narrower sense, a poisonous or inedible fungus as opposed to an edible mushroom, is first recorded in 1607, in Edward Topsell's Historie of Foure-footed Beastes,^[5][3] while Etymonline dates the popular restriction from about 1800.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as a plant like a mushroom, quoting Spenser's "grisly todestool".^[10] Like mushroom, it was used figuratively from 1823, in Cobbett, for something that grows up quickly and lasts a short time,^[5] and since 1939, in Roy Campbell, as a verb meaning to grow up rapidly and objectionably.^[5] In rural speech toad's meat (1886) was another name for it.^[4] Collins notes that the word has no technical use.^[6]

Timeline

• before 1398 – a mushroom, a fungus with a round top on a stalk.^[5][3][7]
• 1607 – a poisonous or inedible fungus, as opposed to an edible mushroom.^[5][3]
• 1823 – figurative, of rapid growth and short life.^[5]
• 1939 – verb, to grow up like a toadstool.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fungus whose fruiting body is an umbrella-shaped cap on a slender stalk.^[11][5]
2. In everyday, not technical, use: such a fungus that is poisonous or inedible, as distinct from an edible mushroom.^[11][6][5]
3. Broadly, any fleshy fungus with a conspicuous fruiting body.^[11]

Verb

1. To grow up or spread quickly and objectionably, like a toadstool.^[5]

Related words

• toad
• stool
• mushroom

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster