wort
Meanings
Plural: worts
Noun
- usually used in combination: `liverwort'; `milkwort'; `whorlywort'
- unfermented or fermenting malt
- Now chiefly as the second element in the names of plants: a plant used for food or medicine.
- Chiefly in the plural: a plant of the genus Brassica used as a vegetable; a brassica; especially, a cabbage (Brassica oleracea).
- A non-vascular plant growing on land from the division Anthocerotophyta (the hornworts) or Marchantiophyta (liverworts); an anthocerotophyte or marchantiophyte.
- 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.
Origin / Etymology
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)
Scrabble Score: 7
wort is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordwort is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
wort is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary