destroying angel

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Any of a group of four deadly toxic mushrooms in the Amanita genus

   Any of a group of four deadly toxic mushrooms in the Amanita genus: Amanita bisporigera, Amanita ocreata, Amanita verna, and Amanita virosa.

   • The doctors ran some tests and confirmed I'd eaten the destroying angel. I was the third person that year to be admitted after eating one. The two before me hadn't survived.
   • You might survive if you eat a destroying angel or death cap, but you’ll probably need a liver transplant.
2. 2

   In the Hebrew Bible, an entity sent out by God on several occasions to punish opponents.

   • Again, I wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that our good old clergyman can be wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right, and that all the angels in Heaven can be destroying angels.
   • Hundred-ton guns were toys compared with the micro-organic projectiles hurled from the laboratories, the messengers of death, the destroying angels that stalked through the empire of a billion souls.

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