ergot

English

Barley grain with ergots (sclerotia of Claviceps purpurea)

Etymology

Borrowed from French ergot, from Old French argot (“spur”), possibly of (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Transalpine Gaulish origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɜːɡət/

Noun

ergot (countable and uncountable, plural ergots)

1. Any fungus in the genus Claviceps which are parasitic on grasses.
2. The sclerotium (wintering stage) of certain fungi in the genus Claviceps, appearing as a deformed grain in certain cereals and grasses infected by the fungi.
   • 1980, Albert Hofmann, Jonathan Ott (translator), chapter 1, in LSD, My Problem Child‎^[1], McGraw-Hill, →ISBN:

     Ergot first appeared on the stage of history in the early Middle Ages, as the cause of outbreaks of mass poisonings affecting thousands of persons at a time. The illness, whose connection with ergot was for a long time obscure, appeared in two characteristic forms, one gangrenous (ergotismus gangraenosus) and the other convulsive (ergotismus convulsivus).

Derived terms

• ergotamine
• ergotic
• ergotism
• ergosterol

Translations

any fungus of the genus Claviceps

• French: ergot (fr) m
• Galician: cornizó m, cornecho m, dentón m, caruncho m
• German: Mutterkornpilz m
• Irish: eargót m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Portuguese: cravagem f
• Russian: спорынья́ (ru) f (sporynʹjá)
• Spanish: cornezuelo (es) m, tizón (es) m

deformed grain

• Finnish: torajyvä (fi), härkäjyvä
• French: ergot (fr) m
• Galician: cornizó m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Portuguese: cravagem f
• Spanish: cornezuelo (es) m, tizón (es) m

See also

• sclerotium

References

• “ergot”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Further reading

• ergot on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Grote, Roget, Trego, regot

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French

Etymology

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old French argot, possibly from a (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Transalpine Gaulish radical arg (“pointed thing”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɛʁ.ɡo/

Noun

ergot m (plural ergots)

1. spur of a male member of Galliformes
2. ergot

Further reading

• “ergot”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.