Psilocybe

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A category of fungi characterized by their psychoactive attributes, which provoke hallucinations and alterations in perception when ingested
2. A genus of mushrooms known for their ability to elicit altered states of mind through the consumption of hallucinogenic compounds
3. A group of mushrooms that produce psychoactive effects including vivid hallucinations when consumed

Etymology: Psilocybe is the scientific name of a large genus of mushrooms, and the word now used for their active compounds, psilocybin and psilocin, comes from the same source. The genus name was built from Greek roots: "psilos", meaning "bald" or "bare", and "kybe", meaning "head". The name refers to the smooth, bare caps of many of these mushrooms, which lack the scales or veil remnants found on other fungi. The name is a technical coinage rather than an ancient one. Like most genus names, it was created by taxonomists to classify organisms, drawing on classical Greek vocabulary, so the ancient Greeks never used it. Its use for hallucinogenic mushrooms came later, as the species were studied and their chemistry was isolated. The everyday sense of the word is therefore a shift from a plain scientific label to a name for a drug-producing group. The mushrooms were named for their physical appearance, and the psychoactive sense grew out of that classification.