agaric
noun/ˈæɡəɹɪk/ · /əˈɡɑːɹɪk/
Etymology From Latin agaricum, from Ancient Greek ἀγαρικόν (agarikón, “a tree fungus (Phellinus pomaceus”)), from the country of Agaria, in Sarmatia.
1
Any of various fungi, principally of the order Agaricales, having fruiting bodies consisting of umbrella-like caps, on stalks, with numerous gills beneath.
- […] these [commentators] were slight excrescences, mushrooms, champignons, that perished as the smoke of the dunghil evaporated, which reared them. A modern editor of Shakespeare is, on the contrary, a fungus attached to an oak; a male agaric of the most astringent kind, that, while it disfigures its form, may last for ages to disgrace the parent of its being.1765, William Kenrick, A Review of Doctor Johnson’s New Edition of Shakespeare, London: J. Payne, page 88:
- Nobody cares for planting the poor fungus: so she shakes down from the gills of one agaric countless spores, any one of which, being preserved, transmits new billions of spores to-morrow or next day.1844, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet”, in Essays. Second Series, Boston: James Munroe, pages 24–25:
2 more examples
- 1872, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King, “Gareth and Lynette” in Gareth and Lynette, Etc. London: Strahan & Co., p. 47, She thereat, as one / That smells a foul-flesh’d agaric in the holt, / And deems it carrion of some woodland thing, / Or shrew, or weasel, nipt her slender nose / With petulant thumb and finger,
- […] I came to / Under a rainy ridge, in a goblin clump / Of agaric.1989, Ted Hughes, “Slump Sundays”, in Wolfwatching, London: Faber and Faber, page 4:
2
A dried fruiting body of a fungus formerly used in medicine (now Laricifomes officinalis, formerly Fomitopsis officinalis, Fomes officinalis, Polyporus officinalis).
- Agarick to purge his flegme, lest he be too drowsie1624, John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, London: Thomas Jones, Devotion 8, Meditation, page 179:
- Derived terms
- agaric acid, agaric gnat, agaricic, agariciform, agaricin, agariclike, agaric mineral, agaricoid, agaricology, agarin, Caesar's agaric, euagaric, fairy ring agaric, larch agaric
- Related terms
- Agaricia, Agaricus, agarwood
- Hyponyms
- deadly agaric, fly agaric, ivory agaric, horsetail agaric, maned agaric, royal agaric