eyebright
nounEtymology Compound of eye (noun) + bright (verb).
1
Any of the flowering plants of the genus Euphrasia, originally as used to treat eye infections.
- Paracelsus had been recommending the plant eyebright for bad eyes in the sixteenth century; it was still in widespread use in the eighteenth.1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society, published 2016, page 273:
- He looks for eyebright, a tiny flowering herb he has seen before, and which he knows would make a good eye-wash: not to be found.1999, Julia Leigh, The Hunter, Faber & Faber 2012, p. 91
- Synonyms
- euphrasy
- Derived terms
- North Island eyebright