Herbal

How to spell herbal

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce herbal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does herbal mean?

1. adjectiveMade from or relating to herbs, especially for flavouring, fragrance, or natural remedies.

Herbal in a sentence

• She drinks a cup of herbal tea before bed each night.

• The pharmacy stocks several herbal remedies alongside the usual medicines.

Where does herbal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin herba, which meant 'grass' or any small green leafy plant, the same root that gives us the noun 'herb' itself. English took 'herb' through Old French in the 1200s, originally written 'erbe' with no pronounced h, which is why many speakers, especially in North America, still say it without the h sound today. The adjective 'herbal' was formed by adding the common Latin-derived suffix '-al', meaning 'relating to', and it was in use by the 1500s to describe anything made from or concerning plants. From the same period 'herbal' also served as a noun for a printed book cataloguing plants and their medicinal uses, a popular genre in the age of early botany. The silent or sounded h is purely a matter of pronunciation; the spelling has always kept the h that came back into the word from its Latin source, so the trap is hearing 'urbal' and forgetting to write that opening letter.

How the word is built

• herb (from Latin herba: grass, green plant)
• -al (adjective-forming suffix: relating to)