Feldwyrt

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An Old English name for a wild field plant once gathered and used in herbal remedies
2. The Anglo-Saxon term for a herb growing in open fields that was prescribed in early medicinal recipes
3. A plant name recorded in Old English texts, referring to a field herb valued for its healing properties

Etymology: Feldwyrt is an Old English word, and its parts are easy to read. "Feld" means "field" (the open land, not the modern sense of a meadow in the countryside), and "wyrt" means "plant" or "herb," the same root that survives in "wort" and in the "-wort" of names like St John's wort and mugwort. Put together, the word meant something like "field plant," a wild herb growing in open ground. The compound is attested in Old English herbal texts, where it appears among the plant names collected for medical and pharmacological use. Because it was a native formation built from ordinary words rather than a learned loan, its meaning stays fairly transparent, and it belongs to the large group of Old English plant names that describe where a plant grows or what it resembles.

Synonyms: horsetail, equisetum