wormwood

From Middle English wormwode, a folk etymology (as if worm +‎ wood) of wermode (“wormwood”), from Old English wermōd (“wormwood, absinthe”), from Proto-West Germanic *warjamōdā (“wormwood”). Cognate with Middle Low German wermode, wermede (“wormwood”), German Wermut (“wormwood”). Doublet of vermouth.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈwə(ɹ)m.wʊd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈwɚm.wʊd/

• Audio (US):

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wormwood (countable and uncountable, plural wormwoods)

1. An intensely bitter herb (Artemisia absinthium and similar plants in genus Artemisia) used in medicine, in the production of absinthe and vermouth, and as a tonic.

   Synonyms: common wormwood, grande wormwood, absinthe, mugwort, artemisia

   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii (the nurse's monologue)]:

     But as I said, / When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple / Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool, / To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 9:15:

     Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.

   • c. 1864, John Clare, We passed by green closes:

     Blue skippers in sunny hours ope and shut
     Where wormwood and grunsel flowers by the cart ruts […]

   • 1897, Edwin Arlington Robinson, “Cliff Klingenhagen”, in Children of the Night:

     Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine
     And one with wormwood.

   • 1922, Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, The Old English Herbals, London: Longmans, Green and Co., page 16:

     Amongst the herbs to be administered when the charm was sung over him were a yew-berry, lupin, helenium, marsh mallow, dock, elder, wormwood and strawberry leaves.

   • 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 1:

     Tradition credits John the Baptist with wearing a girdle fashioned of wormwood, while he was in the wilderness.

2. (figurative) Something that causes bitterness or affliction; a cause of mortification or vexation.
   • 1789, John Moore, Zeluco, Valancourt, published 2008, page 57:

     The irony of this reply was wormwood to Zeluco; he fell into a gloomy fit of musing, and made no farther inquiry […] .

   • 1897, Stanley John Weyman, “The Deanery Ball”, in For the Cause:

     Yet I think the Archdeacon, a "new man," to whom the aristocratic Canon's popularity was wormwood, did dislike him.

• Artemisia absinthium on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Artemisia absinthium on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Category:Artemisia absinthium on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons

• woodworm