st john's wort

Questions about st john's wort

What does st john's wort mean?

st john's wort means "any of numerous plants of the genus Hypericum having yellow flowers and transparently dotted leaves; traditionally gathered on St John's eve to ward off evil".

Is st john's wort a common word?

st john's wort is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.