Etymology

The terms mushroom and toadstool go back centuries and were never precisely defined, nor was there consensus on application. The term toadstool was often, but not exclusively, applied to poisonous mushrooms or to those that have the classic umbrellalike capandstem form. Between 1400 and 1600 AD, the termstadstoles, frogstooles, frogge stoles, tadstooles, tode stoles, toodys hatte, paddockstool, puddockstool, paddocstol, toadstoole, and paddockstoolessometimes were used synonymously withmushrom, mushrum, muscheron, mousheroms, mussheron, or musserouns.