agaric

English

Phellinus tuberculosus

Agaricus sylvaticus

Alternative forms

• agarick (obsolete)

Etymology

From Latin agaricum, from Ancient Greek ἀγαρικόν (agarikón, “a tree fungus (Phellinus pomaceus”)), from the country of Agaria, in Sarmatia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈæɡəɹɪk/, /əˈɡɑːɹɪk/, /əˈɡæɹɪk/

Noun

agaric (plural agarics)

1. Any of various fungi, principally of the order Agaricales, having fruiting bodies consisting of umbrella-like caps, on stalks, with numerous gills beneath.
   • 1765, William Kenrick, A Review of Doctor Johnson’s New Edition of Shakespeare‎^[1], London: J. Payne, page 88:

     […] 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.

   • 1844, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Poet”, in Essays. Second Series‎^[2], Boston: James Munroe, pages 24–25:

     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.

   • 1872, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King, “Gareth and Lynette” in Gareth and Lynette, Etc. London: Strahan & Co., p. 47,^[3]

     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,

   • 1989, Ted Hughes, “Slump Sundays”, in Wolfwatching‎^[4], London: Faber and Faber, page 4:

     […] I came to / Under a rainy ridge, in a goblin clump / Of agaric.

2. A dried fruiting body of a fungus formerly used in medicine (now Laricifomes officinalis, formerly Fomitopsis officinalis, Fomes officinalis, Polyporus officinalis).
   • 1624, John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions‎^[5], London: Thomas Jones, Devotion 8, Meditation, page 179:

     Agarick to purge his flegme, lest he be too drowsie

Hyponyms

• deadly agaric (Amanita phalloides)
• fly agaric (Amanita muscaria)
• ivory agaric (Hygrophorus eburneus)
• horsetail agaric (Coprinus comatus)
• maned agaric (Coprinus comatus)
• royal agaric (Amanita caesarea)

Derived terms

• agaric acid
• agaric gnat (Mycetophilidae spp.)
• agaricic
• agariciform
• agaricin
• agariclike
• agaric mineral
• agaricoid
• agaricology
• agarin
• Caesar's agaric
• euagaric

 

Translations

any fungus having a cap with gills

• Czech: lupenatá houba
• Esperanto: agariko
• Finnish: helttasieni (fi)
• Hungarian: csiperke (hu), csiperkegomba (hu), lemezes gomba, (Fomitopsis officinalis) vörösfenyő-kérgestapló
• Irish: agairg f

  Old Irish: agairc

• Japanese: 原茸 (はらたけ, haratake)
• Portuguese: agárico m

See also

• Agaricia
• Agaricus
• agarwood

Further reading

• agaric on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Agaricales on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Category:Agaricales on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
• Fomitopsis officinalis on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

Anagrams

• Arciga, Garcia, Garica

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /a.ɡa.ʁik/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

agaric m (plural agarics)

1. agaric

   Synonym: psalliote

Further reading

• “agaric”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.