woad

noun

ˈwōd 

: a European herb (Isatis tinctoria) of the mustard family formerly grown for the blue dyestuff yielded by its leaves

also : this dyestuff

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

Achieving a luxurious hue, coaxed from the red roots of the herb madder and the small bluish leaves of the flower woad, required multiple rounds of costly dyeing. —Katie Thornton, The Atlantic, 26 Sep. 2022

Many purples in historic fabrics are, in fact, the result of coloring a fabric with a blue dye, like indigo or woad, and a red dye, like madder. —Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 July 2022

In France in 1598, King Henry IV favored woad producers by banning the import of indigo, and in 1609 decreed that anyone using the dye would be executed. —Brandon Tensley, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Nov. 2020

Plus, indigo represented a threat to European textile merchants who had heavily invested in woad, a homegrown source of blue dye. —Brandon Tensley, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Nov. 2020

His ruling élite dressed in the finest clothes, made by boiling woad leaves and madder roots to produce dyes of dazzling cerulean and ruby. —Ruth Margalit, The New Yorker, 22 June 2020

Seeing a peasant wearing red is improbable, but the abundance of woad makes blue dyes commonplace even among peasants. —Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics, 13 Nov. 2018

The family imported herring and woad in large enough quantities to buy an existing estate and win a kind of ersatz ennoblement. —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 16 Jan. 2017

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Word History

Etymology

Middle English wod, from Old English wād; akin to Old High German weit woad, Latin vitrum

First Known Use

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above