1800 Whole Proc. King's Comm. Peace (City of London & County of Middlesex) 15/2 A little boy called me up [to] go a mushrooming.

1867 Baily's Mag. Sept. 334 The delights of those twin pleasures of autumn, nutting and mushrooming.

1876 Staffordshire Sentinel 2 Sept. The following persons were fined for having done damage by mushrooming.

1900 Westm. Gaz. 16 Aug. 3/1 Mushrooming. The mushrooming is the event of our day.

1927 Daily Express 31 Aug. 5/3 Mushrooming as a pastime is as delightful as mushrooms are delicious to eat.

1990 House & Garden Nov. (Entertaining Suppl.) p. xxviii/1 Considered as a hobby, mushrooming is a day out, an educational experience for..the kids.

2006 A. Schwab Mushrooming without Fear 122 Mushrooming makes you see and appreciate the woodland differently.

1887 Electrician 2 Sept. 358/2 The irregularity in the consumption of carbons caused by this ‘mushrooming’ constantly destroys the focus even of the most perfect automatic lamps.

1889 Naval Mobilization & Improvem. Matériel (U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence) ix. 406 The size of the wound may be due to the mushrooming of the bullet or to the breaking up of the envelope.

1900 Daily News 14 May 3/6 Soft-nosed bullets..appear to have been freely used by the Boers, as 10 per cent. of the wounds were caused by the ‘mushrooming’ of the core of the bullet.

1917 I. G. Cobb Organs Internal Secretion v. 101 The fingers, if viewed by the X rays, show an enlargement of the bones, with a ‘mushrooming’ of the terminal phalanges.

1947 J. C. Rich Materials & Methods Sculpt. ix. 251 For fashioning chisels... It is advisable to cut the chisel blanks 1 to 2½ extra inches in length, since the occasional fracturing of a point, a mushrooming of the end receiving the hammer blows, and repeated sharpening will slowly shorten the total length.

1991 Police Chief July 3 (advt.) Both provide positive automatic pistol performance, excellent penetration, consistent mushrooming, [etc.].

2011 M. Denny Their Arrows will darken Sun vii. 166 Mushrooming effectively increases the bullet caliber when it is inside the target.

1916 Q. National Fire Protection Assoc. Jan. 277 Skylights..should be glazed with plain thin glass which will readily break when attacked by fire, thus affording a vent, and preventing mushrooming of fire on upper floors.

1940 Hammond (Indiana) Times 7 June 21/1 The mushrooming of mercantile establishments along the current business districts.

1946 Fortune Aug. 78/1 Even if both the cities and the airlines had fully foreseen the vast mushrooming of air travel, they could not have done anything substantial to improve airports.

1968 Brit. Med. Bull. 24 189/1 Recent mushrooming of activity and interest in this subject.

1984 G. Smith Eng. Compan. 14 With the mushrooming of commercial radio and cable television, there seems plenty of scope for any aspirant English actors.

2011 C. Chiome in T. Townsend & J. MacBeath Internat. Handbk. Leadership for Learning xxvi. 455 Successful school reforms and the mushrooming of effective schools supported by the Ministry of Education.

1952 California Stylist May The harem dress..mushrooming fullness on a delicate stem.

1968 A. Diment Great Spy Race x. 186 The mushrooming fireball of exploding petrol.

1998 Cycling Today May 12/1 Since last Winter this little tour has become dominated by the mushrooming symbol of the Millennium Dome on Greenwich Peninsula.

1954 Newsweek 8 Nov. 96/2 One mushrooming by-product of burlesque,..is what the 1954 billboards call the exotic dancer.

1972 K. S. Roundhill Prescription for Today's Missionary 11 Positions for foreign teachers in the mushrooming educational programmes..are often available.

1993 United Church Observer June 32/2 Even the gossipy supermarket tabloids and the mushrooming number of talk-shows are thriving on a diet of the perverse and sadistic.