Wormwood Definition

wûrmwo͝od
noun
Any of several aromatic plants of the genus Artemisia.
American Heritage
Any of a number of strong-smelling plants (genus Artemisia) of the composite family, with white or yellow flowers; esp., a Eurasian perennial (A. absinthium) that yields a bitter, dark-green oil (wormwood oil) used in making absinthe.
Webster's New World
Something harsh or embittering.
American Heritage
A bitter, unpleasant, or mortifying experience.
Webster's New World

Anything that causes bitterness or affliction.

Wiktionary

Other Word Forms of Wormwood

Noun

Singular:
wormwood
Plural:
wormwoods

Origin of Wormwood

  • From Middle English wormwode, alteration of wermode (“wormwood"), from Old English wermōd, wormōd (“wormwood, absinthe"), from Proto-Germanic *wermōdaz (“wormwood"). Cognate with Middle Low German wermode, wermede (“wormwood"), German Wermut (“wormwood"). See vermouth.

    From Wiktionary

  • Middle English wormwode alteration (influenced by worm worm) (and wode wood, perhaps from the use of its leaves as a vermifuge) of wermod from Old English wermōd from Germanic wermōdaz

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

Wormwood Sentence Examples

  • Ashes particularly rich in potash are those of burning nettles, wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), fumitory (Fumaria officinalis), and tobacco.

  • The "bright valley," Clara Vallis of St Bernard, was known as the "valley of Wormwood," infamous as a den of robbers.

  • Many English place-names contain the word, the most familiar being Shrewsbury (Scrobbesbyrig) and Wormwood Scrubs.

  • In the low brushwood scattered over portions of the dreary plains of the Kandahar table-lands, we find leguminous thorny plants of the papilionaceous sub-order, such as camel-thorn (Hedysarum Alhagi), Astragalus in several varieties, spiny rest-harrow (Ononis spinosa), the fibrous roots of which often serve as a tooth-brush; plants of the sub-order Mimosae, as the sensitive mimosa; a plant of the rue family, called by the natives lipdtd; the common wormwood; also certain orchids, and several species of Salsola.

  • The rue and wormwood are in general use as domestic medicines - the former for rheumatism and neuralgia; the latter in fever, debility and dyspepsia, as well as for a vermifuge.

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Words Starting With

WWOWOR

Words Ending With

DODOOD

Unscrambles

wormwood

Words Starting With W and Ending With D

Starts With W & Ends With DStarts With WO & Ends With DStarts With W & Ends With OD

Word Length

8 Letter Words8 Letter Words Starting With W8 Letter Words Ending With D