Word.ws English Dictionary

barrenwort

barrenwort noun: a herb, Epimedium alpinum, once thought to prevent conception.

barrenwort: a herb, Epimedium alpinum, once thought to prevent conception
Image: Anneli Salo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

barrenwort (usually uncountable, plural barrenworts)

  1. (usually) A herb, Epimedium alpinum, once thought to prevent conception.
    • “What on earth did you put in that stuff?” “Bug-bane, barren-wort, penny-cress and blood-root, catchfly, toad-flax, nap-weed and wormwood,” said Catweazle.1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 177

Forms of barrenwort

pluralbarrenworts

Origin of barrenwort

From barren + wort.

Questions about barrenwort

What does barrenwort mean?
Barrenwort means a herb, Epimedium alpinum, once thought to prevent conception.
What part of speech is barrenwort?
Barrenwort is a noun.
What is the plural of barrenwort?
The plural of barrenwort is barrenworts.

Words near barrenwort in the dictionary

  1. barrens
  2. barrens chytonix
  3. barrens chytonixes
  4. Barrentine
  5. Barrentines
  6. barrenwort
  7. barrenworts
  8. barrer
  9. Barrera
  10. barrerite
  11. Barrero

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: barrenwort (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “barrenwort.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/barrenwort. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.