tormentil

From mediaeval Latin tormentilla (“minor pain”), perhaps referring to the conditions that the plant was used to treat.

tormentil (plural tormentils)

1. A low-growing herb (Potentilla erecta, syn. Potentilla tormentilla).
   • 1615, Helkiah Crooke, Mikrokosmographia, London: William Jaggard, “A Dilucidation or Exposition of the Controuersies concerning the Historie of the Infant,” Question 31, p. 340,

     […] the hearbe Tormentill which hath seauen leaues resisteth all poysons.

   • 1788, John Trusler (ed.), The Habitable World Described, London, Volume 3, “Travels through Siberia and Tartary” by S. Pallas, Part 2, p. 233,

     Instead of tea, they drink an infusion of the roots of the tormentil (Tormentilla erecta), which, when boiled, dyes the water reddish, gives it a very astringent taste, and is drank without milk.

   • 1917, Mary Webb, Gone to Earth, New York: Dutton, Chapter 25, p. 206,

     The bracken, waist-high at first, was like small hoops at the top of the wood, where the tiny golden tormentil made a carpet and the yellow pimpernel was closing her eager eyes.

   • 1972, Richard Adams, Watership Down, London: Macmillan, Chapter 50,

     The flowers were sparser. Here and there a yellow tormentil showed in the grass, a late harebell or a few shreds of purple bloom on a brown, crisping tuft of self-heal.

• shepherd's knot

• intermolt