properly means a kitchen garden, a yard for herbs. (Saxon, ortgeard—i.e. wort-yard.) Wort enters into the names of numerous herbs, as mug-wort, liver-wort, spleen-wort, etc.
“The hortyard entering [he] admires the fair
And pleasant fruits.”
Sandys.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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