This noun names the wormwood plant (Artemisia absinthium), known throughout the ancient world for its intensely bitter taste. The Old Testament frequently uses wormwood as a symbol of bitter judgment, and this imagery continues in Revelation. Both New Testament occurrences appear in Revelation 8:11, where a great star named 'Wormwood' falls from heaven and makes a third of the waters bitter, causing many deaths. The personification of bitterness as a cosmic judgment agent shows how deeply this plant's bitter character impressed itself on the biblical imagination. Notably, the name appears both as a proper name for the star and as a description of the waters' bitter quality.