mushroom

Noun

• fleshy body of any of numerous edible fungi

• a large cloud of rubble and dust shaped like a mushroom and rising into the sky after an explosion (especially of a nuclear bomb)

• any of various fleshy fungi of the subdivision Basidiomycota consisting of a cap at the end of a stem arising from an underground mycelium

• mushrooms and related fleshy fungi (including toadstools, puffballs, morels, coral fungi, etc.)

• common name for an edible agaric (contrasting with the inedible toadstool)

Verb

• grow and spread fast
  • The problem mushroomed
    

• pick or gather mushrooms
  • We went mushrooming in the Fall
    

Related words

• Synonyms: 
  mushroom cloud , mushroom-shaped cloud