herb-grace, herb of grace
Also herb-a-grace, and corruptly herbgrass, herby-grass.
[app. of English origin: supposed to have arisen like the synonym, herb of repentance, out of the formal coincidence of the name rue with rue v. and n. repent, repentance. See quots. 1592–3, 1602. (But Parkinson, Theatr. Bot. 134 says ‘from the many good properties wherunto it serveth’.)
Notwithstanding Turner, not known in French.]
1. An old name for the herb Rue, Ruta graveolens. (Now Obs. or dial.)
| 1548 Turner Names of Herbes, Ruta is called..in englishe and frenche, Rue and herbe grace, in dutch, Ruten. 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. iii. (1586) 122 b, Take of Gar⁓like heades, seven ounces, of hearbegrace three handfuls. 1592 Greene Upst. Courtier (1871) 4 Some of them smiled and said ‘rue was called herb grace’ which though they scorned in their youth, they might wear in their age, and it was never too late to say miserere. 1593 Shakes. Rich. II, iii. iv. 105 Ile set a Banke of Rew, sowre Herbe of Grace: Rue, eu'n for ruth, heere shortly shall be seene, In the remembrance of a Weeping Queene. 1602 ― Ham. iv. v. 182 Ther's Rew for you, and heere's some for me. Wee may call it Herbe-Grace a Sundaies. c 1610 Rowlands Terrible Battell 24 Angellica is but a rotten root, Hearbe-grace in scorne, I trample vnder-foot. 1665 R. Hooke Microgr. 141 The surface of Rue, or Herbgrass, is polish'd. 1679 G. R. tr. Boyatuau's Theat. World i. 27 Rue, or as we call it, Herb of Grace. 1701 C. Wolley Jrnl. N. York (1860) 44 The vertue of Rue or Herb-a-grace. 1865 Cornh. Mag. July 39 Shakespeare's ‘herb o' grace’ is sadly corrupted, and hardly recognizable under the form ‘herby-grass’. |
2. In general sense: a herb of virtue or valuable properties.
| 1866 Treas. Bot. s.v. Verbena, Vervein has ever been held to be ‘an herb of grace’, and so highly was it esteemed, [etc.]. |
3. (herb of grace.) fig.
| 1601 Shakes. All's Well iv. v. 18 Indeed sir she was the sweete Margerom of the sallet, or rather the hearbe of grace. 1875 Tennyson Q. Mary iii. iv, Mercy, that herb-of-grace, Flowers now but seldom. |