Bonset

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A North American herbaceous plant with white flowers and fuzzy leaves, traditionally used in herbal medicine to treat fevers and colds
2. An old name for a flowering herb of the daisy family, once brewed as a folk remedy for fever and aching bones
3. A wild perennial plant with clustered white blossoms, historically prepared as a tea or tonic for common ailments such as influenza

Etymology: A bonset was once a person: a bonesetter, someone who put broken limbs back into place without formal medical training. The word is a compound of "bone" and "set," the same verb meaning to fix something in its proper position, as in setting a broken bone. Bonesetters were common folk practitioners in Britain for centuries, and the trade passed from parent to child, often within families. The same name was later given to a plant, boneset ("Eupatorium perfoliatum"), a North American herb with clustered white flowers. Colonial settlers and later herbalists used it for fevers and aching bones, and the plant's association with bodily pains likely shaped its name. The plant name is a transfer from the healing practice, not from the practitioner, and the dialect form "bonset" appears in some English and Scots sources for the same plant or for the bonesetter himself. Dictionaries record these senses as regional or archaic rather than standard modern English.