liverwort
/ˈlɪv.ɚ.wɝːt/noun
liverwort is a noun meaning “A type of bryophyte with a leafy stem or leafless thallus characterized by a dominant gametophyte stage and a lack of stomata on the sporophyte stage…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled L-I-V-E-R-W-O-R-T and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 43 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of liverwort is liverworts.
What does liverwort mean?
noun
- 1
A type of bryophyte with a leafy stem or leafless thallus characterized by a dominant gametophyte stage and a lack of stomata on the sporophyte stage of the life cycle.
- 2
A common flowering perennial herb of northern woodlands, Hepatica nobilis (syn. Anemone hepatica), used in traditional European herbal medicine.
Near-synonym: liverweed
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce liverwort?
- UK /ˈlɪv.ə.wɜːt/
- US /ˈlɪv.ɚ.wɝːt/
- US /ˈlɪv.ɚ.wɔːɹt/
Liverwort has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-liverwort.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of liverwort
- liverworts plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is liverwort?
Liverwort appears about once in every 43 million words in written English, the 201,693rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Liverwort in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense bryophyte:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does liverwort come from?
From Middle English lyverwort, liverwort, from Old English liferwyrt, equivalent to liver + wort, from the belief that some species looked like livers and were useful for treating the liver medicinally.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).