mycelium
noun
Example Sentences
Michael Harley, Forbes, 25 July 2022 Ornilux windows, for example, emulate spider silk to reduce bird collisions while Carbon Cure makes cement that eats CO2, bricks can be built from mycelium and innovations continue apace. Felicia Jackson, Forbes, 27 June 2022 Via its patented process, MycoWorks grows mycelium into a uniform sheet that has a similar strength and durability to that of animal leather. Eric Twardzik, Robb Report, 11 Aug. 2022 The [meat substitutes] that come from fungi and mycelium are more interesting to me. Cassie Werber, Quartz, 11 Aug. 2022 Building with living mycelium composites is a challenge, however. William Ralston, Wired, 26 July 2022 The mycelium is then compressed into bricks, which can be used to build houses. Lucas Daprile, cleveland, 12 July 2022 There, its final, irresistible impulse is to latch its jaws upon the twig, dying as the mycelium finally consumes all the insect’s innards. Doug Bierend, Outside Online, 10 Mar. 2021 Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, and Hermès are introducing handbags, shoes, and coats made of mycelium leather – an alternative to animal hides created from roots of mushrooms. Alex Knapp, Forbes, 11 June 2022 See More Word History
borrowed from New Latin, from myc- (from base of Greek mykēt-, mýkēs "mushroom, fungus") + -el- (of unknown origin) + -ium -ium — more at myco-
Note: Term introduced by the Austrian botanist and mycologist Leopold Trattinnick (1764-1849) in Fungi Austriaci, ad specimina viva cera expressi descriptiones ac historiam naturalem completam addidit Leopoldus Trattinnick/Oesterreichs Schwämme, nach lebendigen Originalen in Wachs gearbeitet mit Beschreibungen und einer ausführlichen Naturgeschichte, 1. Lieferung (Vienna, 1804). Trattinnick, who uses the word throughout the work, gives no indication of its derivation. His translation in the parallel vernacular columns is Schwammgewächs, literally, "mushroom growth." The reading of -el- as Greek hêlos "nail head, wart, callus," apparently first proposed in the Century Dictionary and copied by many dictionaries since, is improbable and in any case purely speculative. Somewhat more probable is the suggestion in the Oxford English Dictionary that the interposed -l- is after epithelium.
1836, in the meaning defined above
Medical Definition
mycelium
noun