Any plant of the ginger family, particularly wild or herbaceous ginger plants used medicinally or culinarily.
Compound of 'ginger' and Old English 'wyrt' (plant). The '-wort' suffix means plant or herb, used in botanical nomenclature for centuries.
The term 'wort' survives in plant names like mugwort, figwort, and liverwort—it's an Old English word that modern scientists still use because it perfectly captures the idea of 'plant-as-medicine' that medieval herbalists believed in.
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