Wyrtwala

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An Old English term for a person who gathers and knows the uses of medicinal herbs and plants
2. A herb-gatherer in Old English times, someone skilled in identifying and using healing plants
3. Old English for a herbalist, a practitioner who collected and prepared plants for their medicinal properties

Etymology: Wyrtwala is an Old English word meaning herbalist, built from two elements that appear in the language as separate words. The first, "wyrt", meant a plant or herb, and it survives in the modern word "wort," as in St John's wort and in "herb" compounds. The second, "wala", means one who has knowledge of or deals with something, and it is related to "wealh" and to the familiar Old English word for a foreigner or Briton. The compound therefore describes someone who knows about plants, a practical healer working from the growing world rather than from written learning. The word is recorded in Old English texts, where it appears in the context of medicine and remedies, and it is one of several native compounds for healers. Like many Old English words for specialists, it was built transparently from ordinary parts, so its meaning can be read straight off its elements. It did not survive into later English, which replaced much of this native vocabulary with Latin-derived and French-derived terms such as "herbalist" itself, a borrowing from Medieval Latin "herba."