mushroom, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

mushroom n.

1. a contemptible person; also as adj. [the propensity of the fungus to grow ‘in the dark’].

1594		Greene Selimus in Grosart in Works (1881–3) XIV 282: Summon a parley sirs, that we may know Whether these Mushroms here will yeeld or no.
1627		J. Taylor ‘An Armado’ in Works (1869) I 84: All the seruice Monsieur Mushrome and his Mate can doe, is either to eate, sleepe, spewe, and stink.
1632		Jonson Magnetic Lady III vi: Peace to you all, gentlemen, Save to this mushroom; who I hear is menacing me with a challenge.
1675		F. Fane Love in the Dark IV i: Degenerate Strumpet, couldst thou fine none to make Thy Paramour, but this poor Mushroom?
1708		True Characters of A Deceitful Petty-Fogger et al. 4: This Mushroom Brother of the Quill shall be destitute of Employment.
1757		Foote Author in Works (1799) I 157: He is no longer [...] the mushroom you have described, but of birth and fortune equal to your own.
1764		Foote Mayor of Garrat in Works (1799) I 170: Meek! a mushroom! a milksop!
1807		Irving & Paulding Salmagundi (1860) 393: Our worthy old Dutch families are out-dazzled by modern upstarts and mushroom cockneys.
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) II 77: She is but a little mushroom of the lower ranks.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 16 July n.p.: the whip wants to know Was the Catskill moulder dogging the girls when he got his lip cut [...] Take care mushroon [sic] or you may get another stone in your mouth .

2. a nouveau riche individual or an arriviste family; also as adj. [the propensity of the fungus to ‘spring up overnight’].

1594		Marlowe Edward II line 576: So shall we haue the people of our side, Which for his fathers sake leane to the king, But cannot brooke a night growne mushrump, Such as one as my Lord of Cornewall is.
1616–20		Middleton Mayor of Quinborough (1661) III iii: Thou mushroom, that shot’st up in a night, By lying with thy Mistress.
1627		Hist. of Edward II (1680) 21: The new-made Earl [...] with an ill-advised confidence out-dares the worst of his approaching danger, and is not squeamish to let the Kingdom know it. [...] This Mushroome must be cropt, or Arms must right the Kingdom.
1667		Marvell ‘Last Instructions to a Painter’ Poems and Satires (1892) 50: Whence every day [...] Court-mushrooms are sent in to pickle.
1673		W. Davenant Siege Act V: I’ll pledge thee, mushroom!
1771		H. Mackenzie Man of Feeling 223: The disparity there is between people who are come of something, and your mushroom-gentry who wear their coats of arms in their purses.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Mushroom. A Person or family suddenly raised to Riches & Eminence: an allusion to that Fungus, which starts up in a Night.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.:
1818		Observer 11 Oct. 2: This †mushroom of fashion, whenever he came, / Seem’d to me to display much more dunghill than game † This vegetable, from generally springing up where refuse has been thrown [...] implies an upstart.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1788].
1843		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1854) 317: They [i.e. magistrates] form a bulwark round the throne, more national and more noble than the coronetted spawn of a mushroom aristocracy.
1848		Thackeray Vanity Fair II 331: Do you suppose that that woman, of that family, who are as proud as the Bourbons, and to whom the Steynes are but lackeys, mushrooms of yesterday (for after all, they are not of the old Gaunts, but of a minor and doubtful branch of the house) [...] would bend down to her husband so submissively?
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 19 June 14/1: The mushroom [baseball] clubs are now beginning to pass in their chips.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 25 Nov. 7/2: This mysterious military mushroom who had suddenly jumped from a railway clerk’s desk to an officer’s commission.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 16 Nov. 3/5: Have you heard what the angry Randwick horse dealer said to a mushroom aristocrat who had been haggling [...] over the price of a hack ?

3. the vagina.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

4. with ref. to its shape.

(a) a low-crowned circular hat, esp. a lady’s straw hat with a down-curving brim.

1861		R.F. Burton City of the Saints 315: The ‘mushroom’ and the ‘pork-pie’ had found their way over the plains.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 184: MUSHROOM, an inelegant round hat worn by demure ladies.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1905		Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 20 Jan. 1: [Advt] Cheap Hats for Schoolgirls. Brown Mushrooms, 6d., 10½d., [...] White Mushrooms, 8d., 1s.
1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 257: A man, muffled in heavy fur apparel, whose face, under a huge mushroom cap, instantly, irresistably, drew my regard.
1914		Dundee Courier 3 Mar. 8/1: The Hat in Slang [...] A by no means exhaustive list would include ‘tile,’ ‘golgotha,’ ‘canister,’ ‘castor,’ ‘chimney,’ ‘colleger,’ ‘cock and pinch,’ ‘cowshooters,’ ‘david,’ ‘digger’s delight,’ ‘fantail,’ ‘gomer,’ ‘goss,’ ‘moab,’ ‘molocher,’ ‘muffin cap,’ ‘mushroom,’ ‘pill box,’ ‘stove pipe,’ ‘thatch,’ ‘truck,’ and ‘wee jee’.

(b) an umbrella.

1856		H. Mayhew Great World of London I 6: The mouth has come to be styled the ‘tater-trap;’ [...] the blood ‘claret;’ shoes, ‘crab-shells;’ umbrellas, ‘mushrooms’ (or, briefly, ‘mush’); prisons, ‘stone jugs,’ and so on.
1862		Mayhew & Binny Criminal Prisons of London 6: [as cit. 1856].

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 179/2: Mushroom (Public-house). Name given by frequenters (presumably in contempt), to the great clock to be seen in most taverns, and which gives warning as to closing time.

(d) the head of the penis.

1981		A.K. Shulman On the Stroll 179: She ran her tongue along the back of his cock [...] and up over the mushroom’s ridge.
1987		(con. 1930s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 109: The boys [...] spotted my unusual [circumcised] penis and started calling me ‘Mushroom Mickey’.
1999		N. Stephenson Cryptonomicon 151: Anteater – not mushroom [...] He’s not circumcised, sir!

5. (drugs) in pl., psilocybin/psilocin.

1961		Kerouac letter 28 Dec. in Charters II (1999) 317: Also ate 12 SMushrooms in one afternoon and wanted to send telegram to Winston Churchill [...] on psilocybin [...] Gad, how self-aggrandizingzed you get on S[iberian] M[ushroom]’s.
1967		J. Orton Diaries (1986) 24 Jan. 74: We talked of drugs, of mushrooms which give hallucinations.
1981		D.E. Miller Bk of Jargon 338: mushrooms: Psilocybin.
1991		D. Gaines Teenage Wasteland 109: On Long Island, mushrooms were the big thing for metalheads and Deadheads alike.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 15: Mushrooms — Psilocybin/psilocin.
2007		B. Coleman Check the Technique 332: ‘We didn’t have no chronic at the time—there were some mushrooms here and there’.
2022		I. Fitzgerald Dirtbag, Massachusetts 231: By thirteen I was doing mushrooms and acid.

6. (US) a person who is unwittingly caught in crossfire between criminals.

1988		Daily News 8 June 7: Mushrooms. That’s the street name for victims who get in the way of drug dealers [HDAS].
1993		A. Rodriguez Spidertown (1994) 67: There are so many innocent bystanders shot up. They call them ‘mushrooms.’ (Why mushrooms? Because they pop up in the line of fire. Ho ho ho.).