Word of the Day:
liverwort
What It Means
A type of bryophyte with a leafy stem or leafless thallus characterized by a dominant gametophyte stage and a lack of stomata on the sporophyte stage of the life cycle.
A common flowering perennial herb of northern woodlands, Hepatica nobilis (syn. Anemone hepatica), used in traditional European herbal medicine.
Near-synonym: liverweed
Liverwort in Context
“Since the thallus of some liverworts resembled a liver, such plants were considered useful in making a concoction that would aid in curing liver ailments. Hence the name "liver-plant," or liverwort. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that liverworts possess curative properties.”
Did You Know?
From Middle English lyverwort, liverwort, from Old English liferwyrt, equivalent to liver + wort, from the belief that some species looked like livers and were useful for treating the liver medicinally.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: liverwort (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “liverwort.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/liverwort. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.