Obs. Forms: see TOWN and CRESS. [OE. túncressa, f. tún garden, TOWN + CRESS.] Garden Cress (Lepidium sativum).
a. 700. Epinal Gloss. (O.E.T.), 676. Nasturcium..., tuuncressa.
c. 725. Corpus Gloss., 1359. Tuuncressa.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., II. 22. ʓenim … tun cersan, sio þe self weaxeð, & mon ne sæwð.
c. 1420. Liber Cocorum (1862), 42. Take therto Town cresses, and cresses that growene in flode.
1533. Elyot, Cast. Helth (1541), 90. Let him eate hartyly small radysshe rootes, townkersis,… or purslane.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, I. lxiv. 96. The Swines Cresses … is hoate and dry, like to garden or towne Cressis. Ibid., V. lix. 623.
1615. Markham, Eng. Housew., II. i. (1668), 30. Take the powder of Town cress dried.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, vii. 158. Towne-Cresses, or as the vulgar sort doe pronounce, Town-karsse, is more byting in taste then Rocket.
