Any of several plants, especially certain species of figwort or other herbs, traditionally believed to have cooling or soothing properties.
Compound of cool and wort (an archaic or dialectal term for plant or herb, from Old English wyrt). Wort appears in many plant names like St. John's wort and mugwort. Coolwort referred to various medicinal plants used to reduce fever or soothe irritation.
The suffix -wort in English plant names is a linguistic fossil—it comes from Old English wyrt meaning plant, and appears in dozens of herbal names like figwort, lungwort, and birthwort, connecting us directly to how medieval herbalists categorized and named their medicines.
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