mushroom cloud love

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A cloud of smoke and debris shaped like a mushroom, especially one created by the detonation of a nuclear bomb.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A cloud, specifically an ascending cloud, which spreads outward and downward at the top in a form resembling that of a mushroom.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A large, mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke, flame and debris that rises into the sky as a result of a large explosion, especially after a nuclear explosion.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a large cloud of rubble and dust shaped like a mushroom and rising into the sky after an explosion (especially of a nuclear bomb)

Etymologies

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  • Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

    noun

    Date: circa 1909

    : a mushroom-shaped cloud; specifically : one caused by the explosion of a nuclear weapon

    February 6, 2008

  • Funny, though. I always thought they looked more like broccoli.

    February 6, 2008

  • Mushrooms and other fungi conjure a more sinister, insidious atmosphere. Broccoli is just well... broccoli. It's rather nice to eat.

    February 6, 2008

  • Kewpid agrees with Weart, quoted in Wikipedia article:

    Later in 1946, the Operation Crossroads nuclear bomb tests were described as having a "cauliflower" cloud, but a reporter present also spoke of "the mushroom, now the common symbol of the atomic age." Mushrooms have traditionally been associated both with life and death, food and poison, making them a more powerful symbolic connection than, say, the "cauliflower" cloud.

    February 7, 2008

  • The "fruit" the serpent offered Eve from the Tree of Knowledge has occasionally been represented as a mushroom!

    February 7, 2008

  • That makes me think of psilocybin when you talk about mushrooms in lieu of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge.

    February 7, 2008

  • Eh. They still look like broccoli to me. ;->

    February 7, 2008

  • Plus, they're the right colour to be mushrooms. If they were green, I'd go with broccoli cloud.

    February 7, 2008

  • Sure, sure, the color's all wrong. Still....

    February 7, 2008