Wormwood origins from old German and is one of the first English words, first found extremely early where it is defined as “absinthium – wermod”. This was all the way back in 725. The spelling later changed to wormwood which was originally known as a way to get rid of fleas. Before 1500 it was recommended as “A medicine for a hawk that hath mites. Take the juice of wormwood and there and they shall die”. Turner the father of English botany described the plant extensively in his Names of Herbs (1548). But by then the plant had already become famous for its bitterness, also to the soul because of its use in the Bible. In the 1535 Coverdale Bible, Moses speaks to the Israelites and says that there should be among them so root “that beareth fall and wormwood”.
By the time of Shakespeare it is certainly well used. In an aside in Hamlet, Hamlet expresses his deep bitterness in two words “wormwood, wormwood”. In Love’s Labour’s Lost Rosamund gives a recommendation how “to weed the wormwood from your fruitful brain.” At more or less the same time you could drink a bitter – or wormwood beer or ale.
In vermouth wormwood has come back to its the roots in English. More recently wormwood is more well known as a plant which adds the bitterness to aperitifs. This was all the rage in the late 1700s in Italy who used it to provide the right flavour to a cocktail, such as the Martini and it is a key agreement for such drinks as Punt e Mes and Cinzano.
In German and Russian, wormwood is now called wermut.
