Herbal means made from or related to herbs, which are plants valued for their flavor, scent, or healing properties. When you drink herbal tea, you're sipping hot water infused with dried plants like chamomile, peppermint, or ginger. An herbal remedy uses plants to treat minor ailments: people have used aloe vera on sunburns and ginger for upset stomachs for thousands of years.

The word connects to a long tradition of using plants as medicine. Before modern pharmacies existed, healers grew herbal gardens filled with plants for treating everything from headaches to wounds. Many of today's medicines originally came from studying these traditional herbal treatments. Aspirin, for example, was developed from compounds found in willow bark.

When you see “herbal” on a product label, it usually signals that the ingredients come from plants rather than synthetic chemicals. Herbal shampoos might contain rosemary or tea tree oil. Herbal supplements use concentrated plant extracts.

Note that herbal most often describes things made from non-woody plants. We usually wouldn't call maple syrup or cinnamon “herbal” even though they come from trees. The word typically connects to the softer, leafy plants we call herbs.