eyebright

English
common eyebright (Euphrasia rostkoviana) Mallnitz, Austria.

Etymology

From eye +‎ bright.

Noun

eyebright (countable and uncountable, plural eyebrights)

  1. Any of the flowering plants of the genus Euphrasia, originally as used to treat eye infections. [from 16th c.]
    • 1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society, published 2016, page 273:
      Paracelsus had been recommending the plant eyebright for bad eyes in the sixteenth century; it was still in widespread use in the eighteenth.
    • 1999, Julia Leigh, The Hunter, Faber & Faber 2012, p. 91:
      He looks for eyebright, a tiny flowering herb he has seen before, and which he knows would make a good eye-wash: not to be found.

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