Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Cress

Cress (krĕs), n.; pl. Cresses (krĕs′ĕz). [OE. ces, cresse, kers, kerse, AS. cresse, cerse; akin to D. kers, G. kresse, Dan. karse, Sw. krasse, and possibly also to OHG. chresan to creep.] (Bot.) A plant of various species, chiefly cruciferous. The leaves have a moderately pungent taste, and are used as a salad and antiscorbutic.

☞ The garden cress, called also peppergrass, is the Lepidium sativum; the water cress is the Nasturtium officinale. Various other plants are sometimes called cresses.

To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread. Goldsmith.

Bitter cress. See under Bitter. — Not worth a cress, or ′not worth a kers.′ a common old proverb, now turned into the meaningless "not worth a curse." Skeat.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.