sweetwort

Noun

sweetwort (plural sweetworts)

1. Any of a variety of sweet-tasting plants.
   • […] then boil the buds or bark of elder, sweetwort and green brier leaves1855, Daniel Smith, The Reformed Botanic and Indian Physician, page 383
   • As spring opened, they began to find a plant just showing above the ground; it resembled asparagus, and for some reason they called it " Mashka's sweetwort," though it was very bitter1889, Leo Tolstoy, translated by Nathan Haskell Dole, War and peace, published 1898, page 300
2. An fermented beverage made from malt.
   • It is you who hold with both hands the great sweetwort, brewing it with honey and wine.2024, Jill L. Baker, Culinary Technology of the Ancient Near East, page 2018
3. A sugar-rich liquid, as that used in fermentation.
   • In Alcoholic fermentation yeast is added to some saccharine fluid—such as the "sweetwort" or infusion of malt used in the preparation of beer.1884, T. Jeffery Parker, “Bacteria”, in The New Zealand Journal of Science, volume 2, number 2, page 52
   • Barley-sugar. A preparation of sugar made in long yellow sticks, which were flavoured originally with sweetwort, or extract of malt, but now flavoured with lemon.1885, Edward T. Blakely, A Popular Technical Dictionary of Commercial and General Information, 2 edition, page 32