woad

noun

1. (countable, usually)The plant Isatis tinctoria.

   “Woad is one of those plants which yield the deep blue colouring matter so greatly valued in the arts — Indigo.”

   “Woad was then placed on the regular shopping list of alternative crops.”

   “The cultivation of woad had taken hold in southern England during the early 1580s, but this dispute provides the earliest evidence of its cultivation in the fields around Tewkesbury.”

2. (countable, uncountable, usually)The blue vat dye made from the leaves of the plant through partial drying and fermentation.

   “To prevent this, it was enacted, that no wines of Gaſcony and Guienne, or woads of Tholouſe, should be imported into England, except in ships belonging to the King, or some of his ſubjects; and that all ſuch wines and woads imported in foreign bottoms ſhould be forfeited.”

   “But in the middle of the sixteenth century indigo was introduced from the East Indies: and in the seventeenth century its use became extended, and supplanted that of woad.”

   “Huge quanitities of alum and woad were disembarked each year at Southampton.”

   “For example, woad, a blue dye obtained from the plant Isatis tinctoria, was used throughout the Mediterannean and Europe and is often identified as indigo.”

verb

1. To plant or cultivate woad.

   “Now as the tenants after woading, pay the ſame rent as before, one cannot wonder at landlords making use of such an easy method to raise money: but it is the tenants that quarrel most at it; they assert the land to be 7 sg. an acre the worse for it; here then lies the enquiry.”

   “Such land was usually woaded for two, three or four years and then corned,[…].”

   “He planted woad on it, and engaged a person from the north to manage it; and the produce was so abundant as to afford immense profit. I believe he only woaded two years, and then let it.”

2. To dye with woad.

   “All woollen goods truly mathered, ſhall be marked with a red roſe, and a blue roſe, and all ſuch truly woaded throughout, with a blue roſe only; and if any perſon shall affix any ſuch mark falsely, he ſhall forfeit, for every piece ſo marked 4l. (ſee under).”

   “Againſt a dyer for woading his cloth only to the third ſtall (whereas the custom of dyers was to woad it to the fourth ſtall) and then marking it with the company's seal as if it had been woaded to the fourth ſtall; he was found guilty of woading it only to the third ſtall, and not of ſetting ſuch mark to it, for which reaſon the court was of opinion no judgement ought to be againſt the defendant.”

   “This wool, when scowered, weighed 50 lbs.; when woaded blue, and picked, 48 lbs.”