Fungi

How to spell fungi

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fungi

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fungi mean?

1. nounOrganisms such as mushrooms, moulds, and yeasts, forming a kingdom separate from plants and animals (plural of fungus).

Fungi in a sentence

• The damp cellar walls were covered in several kinds of fungi.

• Biology students learned how fungi break down dead wood in the forest.

Where does fungi come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Fungi is the plural of fungus, which English took directly from Latin, where fungus simply meant a mushroom or any soft, spongy growth of that kind. Scholars have long suspected that the Latin word was itself borrowed from Greek sphongos or spongos, meaning 'sponge', which fits the soft, absorbent texture of many mushrooms. The word entered English in the 1500s as a learned, botanical term and kept its original Latin plural -i ending rather than gaining an English -es. That preserved Latin ending is precisely the spelling trap: the singular ends in -us but the plural swaps to -i, and many writers also stumble over whether to say 'FUN-jy' or 'FUN-guy'. The same biological group gives us related words such as 'fungal' and 'fungicide', the latter built with the Latin caedere, 'to kill'.

How the word is built

• fung- (from Latin fungus: mushroom)
• -i (Latin masculine plural ending)