Meaning & use
mushrooms
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“mushrooms” is a form of “mushroom”.
Meanings
nounplural
Fungi with a stem and rounded cap, many of which are eaten as food.
Grammar: Plural of mushroom: I bought some mushrooms.
Patterns
- pick mushrooms
- fry mushrooms
- mushrooms on something
We fried mushrooms in butter and garlic.
She added sliced mushrooms to the pasta sauce.
After the rain, mushrooms appeared all over the lawn.
verbintransitivefigurative
Third person form of mushroom: grows or increases very quickly.
Grammar: No object: the town mushrooms in summer.
Patterns
- mushroom into something
Prices mushroom whenever there is a shortage.
The small club mushrooms into a huge organization every autumn.
Common combinations
- wild mushrooms
- Never eat wild mushrooms unless an expert has checked them.
- button mushrooms
- Button mushrooms are mild and cheap.
- sliced mushrooms
- Add the sliced mushrooms to the hot pan.
- pick mushrooms
- They went into the forest to pick mushrooms.
- mushroom soup
- Mushroom soup is her favorite starter.
Synonyms and how they differ
- fungi
- Fungi is the scientific group that includes mushrooms, yeast and mold, so it is much broader.
- toadstools
- Toadstools usually suggests poisonous or inedible mushrooms in everyday talk, though the line is not scientific.
- truffles
- Truffles are a special underground kind of fungus, prized and expensive, unlike common mushrooms.
Word family
- mushroom noun
- singular form of the word
- mushroomed verb
- grew quickly, past tense
- mushrooming adjective
- growing or spreading fast
Commonly confused: mushrooms or mushroom cloud?
mushrooms vs mushroom cloud
A mushroom cloud is a cloud shaped like a mushroom, such as after a big explosion, not an edible product.
Practice
Which sentence uses mushrooms to mean grows very fast?
Choose one answer.
In the third sentence mushroom is a verb meaning increase quickly. The second option has the wrong form, since a singular subject needs mushrooms and costs is plural.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “mushrooms”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.