Other forms: herbals
Herbal means tasting or smelling of green leaves and stems. Herbal tea, an herbal note, herbal remedies.
In tasting notes it describes a fresh green quality — thyme, mint, sage — as against fruity or floral. Herbal tea is properly a tisane, since it contains no tea at all. Herbal medicine is a real tradition and the source of many drugs, but herbal on a label is not a guarantee of safety or of anything else. Note that an herbal, as a noun, is an old book describing plants and their uses.
1adjectiveherbalTasting or smelling of green leaves and stems.
“The wine has a fresh herbal smell, like cut grass and mint.”
2nounbookAn old book describing plants and their uses.
“The monks kept a medieval herbal that described hundreds of healing plants.”
herbal is a quality of green plants.
Old French herbal comes from Latin herba, grass or plant. Whether to say a herbal or an herbal depends on whether the h is sounded, which splits British and American use.
Old French
herbal
English, today
herbal
Old French herbal. by surface analysis, herb + -al
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA