Definitions

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

  • noun Any of several foul-smelling fungi of the order Phallales, such as Phallus impudicus or P. ravenelii, having a thick, cylindrical stalk and a narrow cap.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In botany, a common name for certain ill-smelling fungi of the genus Phallus. The most common species is P. impudicus. See Phallus, 3.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A kind of fungus of the genus Phallus, which emits a fetid odor.

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

  • noun Any fungus of the order Phallales which produce a foul-scented, rod-shaped mushroom.

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

  • noun any of various ill-smelling brown-capped fungi of the order Phallales

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The most common question he gets is about a "common but bizarre" fungus called a stinkhorn, which comes up around people's houses in the summer.

    News - chicagotribune.com 2011

  • The Wady-sole grew a "stinkhorn" held to be poisonous, and called, from its fetor, "Faswat el-‘Agúz"

    The Land of Midian — Volume 2 Richard Francis Burton 1855

  • "stinkhorn," extremely common in some districts of England, and obtruding on the notice of every one from its detestable odour.

    The Land of Midian — Volume 2 Richard Francis Burton 1855

  • These were full of the last of the foxgloves and the sickly, overpowering waft of the mysterious stinkhorn fungus.

    How to get back to nature when camping 2010

  • The mulch by our local supermarket must have been seeded with stinkhorn spores; they're all coming up now, in all their masculine glory.

    hilarious mushrooms asakiyume 2006

  • "You must have hatched from a sick stinkhorn, you nauseous avian peeper."

    Pet Peeve Anthony, Piers 2005

  • Davidson's book also sent me to my battered copy of David Arora's Mushrooms Demystified -- the one book you must have if you want to hunt mushrooms-- for this anecdote by the Victorian memoirist Gwen Raverat about the smelly, phallic, stinkhorn mushroom.

    "Because of the morals of the maids"... 2005

  • Davidson's book also sent me to my battered copy of David Arora's Mushrooms Demystified -- the one book you must have if you want to hunt mushrooms-- for this anecdote by the Victorian memoirist Gwen Raverat about the smelly, phallic, stinkhorn mushroom.

    Archive 2005-07-01 2005

  • The common “stinkhorn,” extremely common in some districts of England, and obtruding on the notice of every one from its detestable odour.

    The Land of Midian 2003

  • It has an abominably disgusting odour, and is therefore named the "lattice stinkhorn."

    Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure William Thomas Fernie

Comments

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  • Stinkhorn festers on each side of me...

    - Peter Reading, Juncture, from For the Municipality's Elderly, 1974

    June 22, 2008

  • See fungus virilis penis effigie.

    June 23, 2008