Tansy
/ˈtænzi/noun
A strong-smelling yellow-flowered herb with flat button heads, once used in cooking and as a vermifuge.
The Greek roots
Literally: “deathlessness”
The story of the word
Behind the homely English word is ἀθανασία, immortality, worn down through Latin athanasia and Old French tanesie. Why the plant got the name is unsettled: the dried flowers keep their colour for years, the herb was used in embalming and packed around corpses, and one legend has Ganymede made immortal by a draught of it. English cooks made a tansy, an egg pudding coloured green with its juice, eaten at Easter until the taste for bitterness died out.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
In a sentence
Tansy grows along the whole verge, flat yellow buttons on grey-green stems.
The old recipe for a tansy calls for eggs, cream and enough of the herb to turn it bitter.