wort

Etymology 1

PIE word *wréh₂ds From Middle English wort, wurt, wyrte (“any herb or plant; herb or plant used as food or medicine; (specifically) cabbage or vegetable of the genus Brassica; (chiefly plural) dish of cooked vegetables”) [and other forms], from Old English wyrt (“a plant; vegetable; herb, spice”) [and other forms], from Proto-West Germanic *wurti (“a root; a spice”), from Proto-Germanic *wrōts (“a root”), from Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds (“a root”). Doublet of root and related to orchard. cognates * Old Dutch wort (“herb; plant”) (Middle Dutch wort (“herb; root”)) * Old High German wurz (“herb; root; spice”) (Middle High German wurz, modern German Wurz) * Old Norse jurt, urt (“herb”) (Icelandic jurt, Norwegian urt, Old Danish urt (modern Danish urt), Old Swedish yrt (“plant”) (modern Swedish ört)) * Old Saxon wurt (“herb; plant; root”) (Middle Low German wort, wurt)

noun

1. (archaic or historical) Now chiefly as the second element in the names of plants: a plant used for food or medicine.
   (food):
   (medicine):
   Two saints are credited with giving St. John's wort its name. One was St. John of Jerusalem, who used the wort (plant) during the crusades to heal his knights' battlefield wounds, and the other was John the Baptist. 1999 November, Victoria Zak, “A Modern Herbal Tea Garden”, in 20,000 Secrets of Tea: The Most Effective Ways to Benefit from Nature’s Healing Herbs, New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing, page 209
2. (specifically, historical) Chiefly in the plural: a plant of the genus Brassica used as a vegetable; a brassica; especially, a cabbage (Brassica oleracea).
3. (by extension, botany) A non-vascular plant growing on land from the division Anthocerotophyta (the hornworts) or Marchantiophyta (liverworts); an anthocerotophyte or marchantiophyte.

Etymology 2

beer.]] From Middle English wort, worte (“infusion of grain (probably malted barley) for brewing ale or beer; unfermented or incompletely fermented beer; infusion of honey and water for making mead; unfermented decoction or infusion of other substances used for food or medicine”) [and other forms], from Old English wurt, wyrt, wyrte (“wort in brewing”), from a merger of Proto-West Germanic *wurtiju (“wort in brewing; seasoning, spice”) and *wurti (“root; spice”), both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *wrōts (“a root”): see further at etymology 1. cognates * Dutch wort (“wort in brewing”) * Middle Low German wert, werte (“infusion of malt in brewing; unfermented beer”) * Old High German wirz (“infusion of malt in brewing; unfermented beer”) (Middle High German wirz, modern German Wirz (“juice; sweet liquid; unfermented beer”) (obsolete); see also German Würze (“aroma; seasoning, spice; spiciness”)) * Old Norse virtr (Danish urt (“wort in brewing”), Icelandic virt, virtur, Norwegian vørter, Swedish vört)

noun

1. (brewing, distilling) Also worts: a liquid extracted from mash (ground malt or some other grain soaked in hot water), which is then fermented to make beer or fermented and distilled to make a malt liquor such as whisky.
   Making the wort with nothing but barley malt and hot water is the standard method in Germany, and in many U.S. microbreweries. 2004, Harold McGee, “Wine, Beer, and Distilled Spirits”, in On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, revised edition, New York, N.Y., London: Scribner, page 747
   They discovered what are called "wild" or "spontaneously fermented" beers, in which fermentation is induced not by pitching commercially produced yeast into an enclosed tank, but by letting the wild yeasts floating in the air interact with the wort to turn it into alcohol. 2017, Jon C. Stott, “The Birds and the Yeasts in Tillamook”, in Beer 101 North: Craft Breweries and Brewpubs of the Washington and Oregon Coasts, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, page 110