Obs. [A corruption of L. cyperus, cyperos, app. confounded with CYPRESS1.] The Sweet Cyperus or Galingale.
c. 1430. Two Cookery-bks., 21. Vyaund de cyprys bastarde … take whyte Gyngere, and Galyngale, and Canel fayre y-mynced.
1549. Compl. Scot., vi. 67. I sau cipresses, that is gude for the fluxis of the bellye.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1673), 143. Against tikes, lice, and fleas, anoint the dog with bitter almonds … or roots of maple, or cipers.
1712. trans. Pomet’s Hist. Drugs, I. 35. Long Cypress … is a knotty Root.
1799. C. Smith, Laboratory, II. 400. Add one drachm of the powder of cypress.
b. Comb., as cypress-powder, cypress-root.
1634. W. Tirwhyt, trans. Balzac’s Lett., 99. Enjoyning me never to goe to the Warres, but when Muskets are charged with Cypres-powder.
1652. Urquhart, Jewel, Wks. (1834), 229. Like another Sejanus, with a periwig daubed with Cypres powder.
1790. W. Woodville, Med. Bot., I. 75, note. The root [of Arum maculatum], dried and powdered, is used by the French to wash the skin with … under the name of Cypress Powder.
1879. Prior, Plant-n., 61. Cypress-root, or Sweet Cypress … a plant the aromatic roots of which are known as English galingale, Cyperus longus.
