A plant (also called figwort) historically used in folk medicine to treat dropsy, particularly Scrophularia species.
Compound of 'dropsy' and 'wort' (Old English 'wyrt' meaning 'plant'), following the convention of naming medicinal plants for the conditions they supposedly treated.
Medieval herbalists named plants for their believed medicinal properties—'dropsywort' was used because its bumpy seeds resembled dropsy blisters (called the Doctrine of Signatures), and ironically, figwort does contain compounds with mild diuretic properties.
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