"a plant," Old English wyrt "root, herb, vegetable, plant, spice," from Proto-Germanic *wurtiz (source also of Old Saxon wurt, Old Norse, Danish urt, Old High German wurz "plant, herb," German Wurz, Gothic waurts, Old Norse rot "root"), from PIE root *wrād- "branch, root." St. John's wort attested from 15c.
plant of the rosaceous genus Agrimonia, from Old English agrimonia from Latin agrimonia. Prior says it is "probably" from Greek argemōnē, "but what this plant was, or why it was called so, is unknown."
"broad-leaved herbaceous plant," 1924, from Greek phorbe "fodder, forage."
"polish by the application of Simoniz," 1921, from Simoniz, trademark for a type of car polish invented by George Simons, who in 1910 along with Elmer Rich of the Great Northern Railway organized Simons Manufacturing Company in Chicago to sell the stuff. Rich and his brother, R.J. Rich, acquired sole ownership two years later.
plant genus of the borage family, native to central Europe, 1753, Modern Latin, a name of unknown origin. Klein suggests Arabic arnabiyah, a name of a type of plant, as the ultimate source. Century Dictionary suggests "perhaps a perversion of ptarmica."
mid-14c., "the plant alkanet" or its root (which yields a red dye material and is used as a styptic), from Medieval Latin, from a diminutive of alcanna, from Arabic al-hinna (see henna). As the name of the plant itself, from 1560s.
"honey-plant," climbing, flowering plant of southeast Asia, 1816, named in Modern Latin in honor of English gardener and botanist Thomas Hoy (c. 1750-1822).
mid-14c., "aromatic substance from an Indian plant, famous perfumed unguent of the ancients," from Medieval Latin spica nardi (see spike (n.2)), rendering Greek nardou stakhys, in which the other element probably ultimately from Sanskrit nalada-, the name of the plant.
