Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various fungi chiefly of the family Lycoperdaceae, having a ball-shaped fruiting body that when pressed or struck releases clouds of small spores.
- noun Informal The rounded head of a dandelion that has gone to seed.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Any one of various gasteromycetous fungi, especially of the genus Lycoperdon: so called from their habit of puffing or suddenly discharging a cloud of spores when they are shaken or squeezed after the chamber in which the spores develop breaks open.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Bot.) A kind of ball-shaped fungus (
Lycoperdon giganteum , and other species of the same genus) full of dustlike spores when ripe; -- called alsobullfist ,bullfice ,puckfist ,puff , andpuffin .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of various
fungi that produce a cloud of brown dust-likespores from their maturefruiting bodies .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any of various fungi of the family Lycoperdaceae whose round fruiting body discharges a cloud of spores when mature
- noun any of various fungi of the genus Scleroderma having hard-skinned subterranean fruiting bodies resembling truffles
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word puffball.
Examples
-
You both belong to the order of what I call puffball politicians. "
The Devil's Paw 1906
-
In stark contrast, was the autumn / winter collection shown by the flamboyant French designer, Christian Lacroix, inventor of the "puffball".
Telegraph.co.uk: news business sport the Daily Telegraph newspaper Sunday Telegraph 2009
-
Tucker continues his column by, once again, raising the issue of Stewart's "puffball" 2004 interview with John Kerry, and continues by criticizing Stewart's interview with Obama in 2008.
Hominid Views 2009
-
His black jowls hung loose as he tore past the stony slope where Master Klab had launched his puffball.
GuildWars Edge of Destiny J. Robert King 2011
-
In the hush, the asura, the norn, and the dire wolf watched breathlessly as a great white puffball drifted up over the edge of the pyramid.
GuildWars Edge of Destiny J. Robert King 2011
-
In 1961 Norman Parkinson posed three models in daring cocktail dresses and puffball hats on a Florentine street, then snapped one of the iconic shots of 1960s fashion.
-
At the base of the puffball, a dozen or so skyhooks hung, testimony to the failure of rescue krewes.
GuildWars Edge of Destiny J. Robert King 2011
-
“Wait just a moment!” shouted Master Klab, inventor of the flying puffball and, most recently, the caldera plug.
GuildWars Edge of Destiny J. Robert King 2011
-
The puffball broke free, rising into the air like a floating balloon.
GuildWars Edge of Destiny J. Robert King 2011
-
Just then, the puffball rose above the city, where a breeze dragged it suddenly away.
GuildWars Edge of Destiny J. Robert King 2011
qroqqa commented on the word puffball
also: the fruit of a sycamore
When I first knew the neighbourhood, at the turn of the century, Fifth Street was paved with cobblestones, and a genial City Council allowed a tall sycamore tree to stand quietly in the middle of the brick sidewalk in front of Mrs Albright's house, dropping its puffballs in season.
—James Thurber, 1952, 'Daguerreotype of a Lady', in The Thurber Album (Penguin ed., so BrE conventions)
Not in OED specifically in this sense, but its sense 3 includes: '(in extended use) something resembling or reminiscent of a powder puff in appearance, esp. the pappus of the dandelion, thistle, etc.'
July 10, 2008
ruzuzu commented on the word puffball
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Puffball&oldid=1077613917
July 12, 2022