A plant or herb, especially one used for medicinal purposes or in brewing; also refers to the liquid extracted from grain during the brewing process.
From Old English 'wyrt' and Germanic roots meaning 'plant' or 'root.' The word appears in many plant names like 'mugwort' and 'figwort,' and evolved a specialized meaning in brewing referring to the sweet liquid before fermentation.
Wort is crucial to beer-making but almost invisible to drinkers—it's what you get when you soak crushed grain in hot water, and all the sugars that yeast will later ferment into alcohol come from this single step, making it one of the oldest biotechnology processes humans use.
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