mushroom [LME] The form of the word mushroom as we have it has been arrived at by folk etymology so that it appears to be formed from two familiar words, mush + room, regardless of the fact that there is no apparent sense to it. The same applies to the dialect form mushrump. The form of the word which was brought to the country by French-speaking Normans has always been slippery, appearing in multiple spellings, such as mus(s)erun and mosheron. Although the modern spelling appears from the 16th century onwards, the word took a long time to settle in this form. The Oxford English Dictionary records fifty-three different spellings of the word through the centuries including moushrimp and muskroom, and forms ending in the original –n were common into the 19th century. The shortening shroom did not appear until the late 20th century, used both of culinary mushrooms and hallucinogenic magic mushrooms.