wort

/wɜːt/US/wɝt/

wort noun: now chiefly as the second element in the names of plants: a plant used for food or medicine.

Image: Ildar Sagdejev ( Specious ), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

wort (plural worts)

(archaic, historical) Now chiefly as the second element in the names of plants: a plant used for food or medicine.
- [T]he people of his citye, […] shulde be norysshed with barly brede and cakes of whete, and that the residue of their diete shulde be salte, olyues, chese, and likes, and more ouer wortes that the feldes do brynge furthe, for their potage.1531, Thomas Elyot, “Of Sobrietie in Diete”, in Ernest Rhys, editor, The Boke Named the Governour […] (Everyman’s Library), London: J[oseph] M[alaby] Dent & Co; New York, N.Y.: E[dward] P[ayson]...
- [H]e [a poor person] drinks vvater, and liue's of vvort leaues, pulſe, like a hog, or ſcraps like a dog, […]1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Pouerty and Want Causes of Melancholy”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry...
Synonyms:

herb, potherb, vegetable
(historical, specifically) Chiefly in the plural: a plant of the genus Brassica used as a vegetable; a brassica; especially, a cabbage (Brassica oleracea).
- VVhy (ſay they in ſcorne and contempt of povertie) here is the ſtem of a vvoort ſo vvell grovvne, here is a cabbage ſo thriven and fed, that a poore mans boord vvill not hold it.1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “[Book XIX.] The Manner of Trimming and Ordering Gardens: The Sorting of All Those Things that Grow out of the Earth, into Their Due Places...
- I am poore / And may expect a vvorſe; yet digging, pruning, / Mending of broken vvayes, carrying of vvater, / Planting of VVorts, and Onyons, any thing / That's honeſt, and a mans, Ile rather chooſe, […]1610–1614, John Fletcher, “The Tragedie of Valentinian”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act III, scene ii...
(broadly) A non-vascular plant growing on land from the division Anthocerotophyta (the hornworts) or Marchantiophyta (liverworts); an anthocerotophyte or marchantiophyte.

Noun (2)

wort (countable and uncountable, plural worts)

(distilling) Also worts: a liquid extracted from mash (ground malt or some other grain soaked in hot water), which is then fermented to make beer, or fermented and distilled to make a malt liquor such as whisky.
- Nay then tvvo treyes, an if you grovv ſo nice, / Methegline, VVort, and Malmſey; […]c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- VVhen they make drink vvith them, they take 10 or 12 ripe Plantains and maſh them vvell in a Trough: then they put tvvo gallons of VVater among them; and this in tvvo hours time vvill ferment and froth like VVort: In four hours it is fit to drink; and then they bottle it and drink it as they have...1697, William Dampier, chapter XI, in A New Voyage Round the World. […], London: […] James Knapton, […], →OCLC, page 314

wort meaning in Tamil

wort in Tamil

நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும், தாவரங்களில் ஒன்றாகும்

Examples of wort in a sentence

John of Jerusalem, who used the wort (plant) during the crusades to heal his knights' battlefield wounds, and the other was John the Baptist.1999 November, Victoria Zak, “A Modern Herbal Tea Garden”, in 20,000 Secrets of Tea: The Most Effective Ways to Benefit from Nature’s...
Making the wort with nothing but barley malt and hot water is the standard method in Germany, and in many U.S. microbreweries.2004, Harold McGee, “Wine, Beer, and Distilled Spirits”, in On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, revised edition, New...

All 10 example sentences with wort

Synonyms of wort

Forms of wort

plural	worts

Plural of wort: worts

Origin of wort

PIE word *wréh₂ds From Middle English wort, wurt, wyrte (“any herb or plant; herb or plant used as food or medicine; (specifically) cabbage or vegetable of the genus Brassica; (chiefly plural) dish of cooked vegetables”) [and other forms], from Old English wyrt (“a plant; vegetable; herb, spice”) [and other forms], from Proto-West Germanic *wurti (“a root; a spice”), from Proto-Germanic *wrōts (“a root”), from Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds (“a root”). Doublet of root and related to orchard. Cognates * Old Dutch wort (“herb; plant”) (Middle Dutch wort (“herb; root”)) * Old High German wurz (“herb; root; spice”) (Middle High German wurz, modern German Wurz) * Old Norse jurt, urt (“herb”) (Icelandic jurt, Norwegian urt, Old Danish urt (modern Danish urt), Old Swedish yrt (“plant”) (modern Swedish ört)) * Old Saxon wurt (“herb; plant; root”) (Middle Low German wort, wurt)

From Middle English wort, worte (“infusion of grain (probably malted barley) for brewing ale or beer; unfermented or incompletely fermented beer; infusion of honey and water for making mead; unfermented decoction or infusion of other substances used for food or medicine”) [and other forms], from Old English wurt, wyrt, wyrte (“wort in brewing”), from a merger of Proto-West Germanic *wurtiju (“wort in brewing; seasoning, spice”) and *wurti (“root; spice”), both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *wrōts (“a root”): see further at etymology 1. Cognates * Dutch wort (“wort in brewing”) * Middle Low German wert, werte (“infusion of malt in brewing; unfermented beer”) * Old High German wirz (“infusion of malt in brewing; unfermented beer”) (Middle High German wirz, modern German Wirz (“juice; sweet liquid; unfermented beer”) (obsolete); see also German Würze (“aroma; seasoning, spice; spiciness”)) * Old Norse virtr (Danish urt (“wort in brewing”), Icelandic virt, virtur, Norwegian vørter, Swedish vört)

Words formed from wort

Phrases with wort

3 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with wort

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about wort

What does wort mean?: Wort means now chiefly as the second element in the names of plants: a plant used for food or medicine.
What is wort in Tamil?: Wort in Tamil is நமது பூமியில் காணப்படும், தாவரங்களில் ஒன்றாகும். See Wort meaning in Tamil.
How do you use wort in a sentence?: John of Jerusalem, who used the wort (plant) during the crusades to heal his knights' battlefield wounds, and the other was John the Baptist.
What part of speech is wort?: Wort is a noun.
How do you pronounce wort?: Wort is pronounced /wɜːt/ (UK).
What is the plural of wort?: The plural of wort is worts.

Words near wort in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: wort (page history and authors); wort (Tamil Wiktionary) (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-wort.wav.

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