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''wort'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260130210911-00-⌔

wort - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

wort (plural worts)

  • (archaic or historical) Now chiefly as the second element in the names of plants: a plant used for food or medicine.
    • ✤ (food): Synonyms: herb, potherb, vegetable
    • ✤ (medicine): Synonym: herb
    • ✤ [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.1
    • ✤ [H]e [a poor person] drinks vvater, and liue’s of vvort leaues, pulſe, like a hog, or ſcraps like a dog, […]2
    • ✤ It is an excellent pleaſure to be able to take pleaſure in vvorts and vvater, in bread and onions; […]3
    • ✤ Two saints are credited with giving St. John’s wort its name. One was St. John of Jerusalem, who used the wort (plant) during the crusades to heal his knights’ battlefield wounds, and the other was John the Baptist.4
  • (specifically, historical) 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.5
    • ✤ 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, […]6
    • ✤ Though ne’er ſo mean the Viands be,/They vvell content my Prevv and me./Or Pea, or Bean, or VVort, or Beet,/VVhat ever comes, content makes ſvveet: […]7
  • (by extension, botany) A non-vascular plant growing on land from the division Anthocerotophyta (the hornworts) or Marchantiophyta (liverworts); an anthocerotophyte or marchantiophyte.

Noun

wort (countable and uncountable, plural worts)

  • (brewing, 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; […]8
    • ✤ 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 occaſion: […]9
    • ✤ Making the wort with nothing but barley malt and hot water is the standard method in Germany, and in many U.S. microbreweries.10
    • ✤ They discovered what are called “wild” or “spontaneously fermented” beers, in which fermentation is induced not by pitching commercially produced yeast into an enclosed tank, but by letting the wild yeasts floating in the air interact with the wort to turn it into alcohol.11

Etymology 1

📊 ➺ 🖼️ ➺

A cabbage (Brassica oleracea var. capitata f. alba). Cabbages were formerly also known as worts (noun sense 2).

🖼️ ➺

A smooth hornwort (Phaeoceros laevis), a type of wort (noun sense 3).

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],12 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”).1314 Doublet of root and related to orchard.

Pronunciation

Usual pronunciation:

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /wɜːt/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (General American) IPA: /wɝt/
  • Homophone: wert
  • Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)t

Alternative, spelling pronunciation:

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /wɔːt/
  • (General American) IPA: /woɹt/
  • Homophone: wart
  • Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)t

Etymology 2

🖼️ ➺

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],15 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 1.1617

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /wɜːt/, /wɔːt/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (General American) IPA: /wɝt/, /woɹt/
  • Homophones: wert (one pronunciation), wart (one pronunciation)
  • Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)t, -ɔː(ɹ)t

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 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] Dutton & Co, published [1907], →OCLC, 3rd book, page 264: ↩

  2. 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 Cripps, →OCLC, partition 1, section 2, member 4, subsection 6, page 207: ↩

  3. 1653, Jer[emy] Taylor, “[XXV Sermons Preached at Golden Grove: Being for the Winter Half-year, […].] Sermon XVI. The House of Feasting: Or The Epicures Measures. Part II.”, in ΕΝΙΑΥΤΟΣ [Eniautos]. A Course of Sermons for All the Sundays of the Year. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Richard Royston […], published 1655, →OCLC, page 204: ↩

  4. 1999 November, Victoria Zak, “A Modern Herbal Tea Garden”, in 20,000 Secrets of Tea: The Most Effective Ways to Benefit from Nature’s Healing Herbs, New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing, →ISBN, page 209: ↩

  5. 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, besides Corne and Plants Bearing Fruit.”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […], 2nd tome, London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC, page 11: ↩

  6. 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, page 14, column 2: ↩

  7. 1648, Robert Herrick, “His Content in the Country”, in Hesperides: Or, The Works both Humane & Divine […], London: […] John Williams, and Francis Eglesfield, and are to be sold by Tho[mas] Hunt, […], →OCLC, page 233: ↩

  8. 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] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], page 138, column 2: ↩

  9. 1697, William Dampier, chapter XI, in A New Voyage Round the World. […], London: […] James Knapton, […], →OCLC, page 314: ↩

  10. 2004, Harold McGee, “Wine, Beer, and Distilled Spirits”, in On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, revised edition, New York, N.Y.; London: Scribner, →ISBN, page 747: ↩

  11. 2017, Jon C. Stott, “The Birds and the Yeasts in Tillamook”, in Beer 101 North: Craft Breweries and Brewpubs of the Washington and Oregon Coasts, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 110: ↩

  12. “wǒrt, n. (1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

  13. Compare “wort, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2021. ↩

  14. “wort, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩

  15. “wǒrt, n. (2)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

  16. “wort, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩

  17. Compare “wort, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2023. ↩

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