woad

/wəʊd/US/woʊd/

woad noun: the plant Isatis tinctoria.

Image: Alupus, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

woad (usually uncountable, plural woads)

(countable, usually) The plant Isatis tinctoria.
- Woad is one of those plants which yield the deep blue colouring matter so greatly valued in the arts — Indigo.1840, Francis S. Wiggins, The American Farmer's Instructor, Or Practical Agriculturist, page 185
- Woad was then placed on the regular shopping list of alternative crops.1997, Joan Thirsk, Alternative Agriculture: A History, page 80
Synonyms:

glastum, Isatis tinctoria
(countable, uncountable, usually) The blue vat dye made from the leaves of the plant through partial drying and fermentation.
- To prevent this, it was enacted, that no wines of Gaſcony and Guienne, or woads of Tholouſe, should be imported into England, except in ships belonging to the King, or some of his ſubjects; and that all ſuch wines and woads imported in foreign bottoms ſhould be forfeited.1814, Robert Henry, The History of Great Britain, 5th edition, volume XII, page 309
- But in the middle of the sixteenth century indigo was introduced from the East Indies: and in the seventeenth century its use became extended, and supplanted that of woad.1856, Albrecht Daniel Thaer, The Principles of Practical Agriculture, page 462
Synonyms:

indigo, indigotin

Verb

woad (third-person singular simple present woads, present participle woading, simple past and past participle woaded)

To plant or cultivate woad.
- Now as the tenants after woading, pay the ſame rent as before, one cannot wonder at landlords making use of such an easy method to raise money: but it is the tenants that quarrel most at it; they assert the land to be 7 sg. an acre the worse for it; here then lies the enquiry.1771, Arthur Young, The Farmer's Tour through the East of England, page 59
- Such land was usually woaded for two, three or four years and then corned,[…].1968, Eric Kerridge, The Agricultural Revolution, page 209
To dye with woad.
- All woollen goods truly mathered, ſhall be marked with a red roſe, and a blue roſe, and all ſuch truly woaded throughout, with a blue roſe only; and if any perſon shall affix any ſuch mark falsely, he ſhall forfeit, for every piece ſo marked 4l. (ſee under).1777, George Clark, The Penal Statutes Abridged, and Alphabetically Arranged, page 111
- Againſt a dyer for woading his cloth only to the third ſtall (whereas the custom of dyers was to woad it to the fourth ſtall) and then marking it with the company's seal as if it had been woaded to the fourth ſtall; he was found guilty of woading it only to the third ſtall, and not of ſetting ſuch...1793, Charles Viner, A General Abridgment of Law and Equity, volume 14, page 409

woad meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Punjabi and Arabic

woad in Tamil

நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும், தாவரங்களில் ஒன்றாகும்

woad in Urdu

woad: وسمہ vasma
woad, indigo , historically used as an eyebrow dye in Iran, Azerbaijan and South Asia: وسمہ vasma

woad in Punjabi

woad: وسمہ vasmah
woad, indigo , historically used as an eyebrow dye in Iran, Azerbaijan and South Asia: وسمہ vasmah

woad in Arabic

Isatis tinctoria: وَسْمَة wasma, سُدُوس sudūs

More languagesFewer languages

woad in Persian: وسمه vasme, کتم kotm, برگ نیل barg-e nīl

Examples of woad in a sentence

The cultivation of woad had taken hold in southern England during the early 1580s, but this dispute provides the earliest evidence of its cultivation in the fields around Tewkesbury.1998, Daniel C. Beaver, Parish Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester, 1590-1690, page 32:
Huge quanitities of alum and woad were disembarked each year at Southampton.1983, E. B. Fryde, Studies in Medieval Trade and Finance, page 360:
For example, woad, a blue dye obtained from the plant Isatis tinctoria, was used throughout the Mediterannean and Europe and is often identified as indigo.2007, Richard L. Myers, The 100 Most Important Chemical Compounds: A Reference Guide, page 152:
He planted woad on it, and engaged a person from the north to manage it; and the produce was so abundant as to afford immense profit.1812, Edmund Burke, The Annual Register, Or, A View of the History, Politics, and Literature, For the Year 1811, page 517:

Synonyms of woad

glastum
Isatis tinctoria
indigo
indigotin

Forms of woad

Noun
plural	woads
Verb
third-person singular present	woads
present participle	woading
past participle	woaded
past	woaded

Origin of woad

From Middle English wode, from Old English wād (“woad”), from Proto-West Germanic *waiʀd, from Proto-Germanic *waizdaz (“woad”), from Proto-Indo-European *woydʰ-. Cognate with Old Frisian wēd (“woad”), Dutch wede (“woad”), German Waid (“woad”), and with French guède, Italian guado (“woad”) (both borrowed from Frankish). See also weed.

Words formed from woad

Words that rhyme with woad

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about woad

What does woad mean?: Woad means the plant Isatis tinctoria.
What is woad in Tamil?: Woad in Tamil is நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும், தாவரங்களில் ஒன்றாகும். See Woad meaning in Tamil.
How do you use woad in a sentence?: The cultivation of woad had taken hold in southern England during the early 1580s, but this dispute provides the earliest evidence of its cultivation in the fields around Tewkesbury.
What part of speech is woad?: Woad can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce woad?: Woad is pronounced /wəʊd/ (UK).
What is the plural of woad?: The plural of woad is woads.

Words near woad in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: woad (page history and authors); woad (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); وسمہ (Urdu) (page history and authors); وسمہ (Punjabi) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-woad.wav.

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