Plural of ergot; multiple instances of the fungal disease that grows on grain crops, or multiple of the dark fungal sclerotia themselves.
Plural form of ergot, from French 'ergot' (rooster's spur), because the fungal structure resembled the curved spur on a rooster's leg.
The visual similarity to a rooster's spur was so obvious to medieval farmers that they named the disease after it—showing how even ancient people used shape-based language to describe what they observed.
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