Meanings
shiro1
- uncountableA stew of Ethiopia and Eritrea origin whose primary ingredient is powdered chickpeas or broad-bean meal.
shiro2
plural shiros
- A mass of hyphae constituting the mycelium of certain fungi.
‘Shiro’ refers to the dense mat of fungal filaments that Tricholoma Matsutake forms in soil in association with pine roots and soil particles. It is considered that the amount of mycelia in T. matsutake shiros is closely related to the amount of emerged T. matsutake fruiting body.
2007 September 24, Lu-Min Vaario, “Can we regulate the growth of shiro?”, in Matsutake Workshop, archived from the original on 09 Jun 20221 more example
Another commonly used Japanese term in matsutake literature is "shiro". As a Japanese noun, it means castle or domain (fruiting place) of a mushroom. As an adjective, it means white. More specifically, a shiro is the dense mat of fungal filaments ("hyphae" or collectively "mycelium") that matsutake species form in the soil.
1997, David Hosford, David Pilz, Randy Molina, Michael Amaranthus, Ecology and Management of the Commercially Harvested American Matsutake Mushroom, page 2
Shiro3
- A male given name from Japanese.
Origin
shiro · noun
- tiሺሮ“chickpea flour”
- Englishshiro
Possibly from Amharic or Tigrinya ሺሮ (širo, “chickpea flour”)
More words from ti
Full word history & related roots →shiro · noun
Of Japanese origin, either 城 (shiro, “castle”) or 白 (shiro, “white”) (see quotation below).
Full word history & related roots →Shiro · proper noun
- Japaneseしろう
- EnglishShiro
Borrowed from Japanese しろう (Shirō).
More words from Japanese
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
shiro. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shiro
“shiro.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shiro. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “shiro,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shiro.
Source: shiro on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.