Meaning & use
cress
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Meanings
noununcountable
A small green plant with thin stems and tiny leaves, eaten raw in salads or sandwiches.
Grammar: No plural and no 'a' before it: add cress to the salad, not add a cress.
Patterns
- add cress to something
- a bunch of cress
- grow cress
She sprinkled fresh cress over the egg sandwiches.
We grew cress on wet paper in a jar at school.
The salad was just tomatoes, cucumber, and a little cress.
noununcountable
Used in plant names for several related leafy plants with a sharp, peppery flavor.
Grammar: Often joined to another word to name a kind of plant, as in 'watercress' or 'garden cress'.
Patterns
- watercress
- garden cress
- land cress
Watercress is a kind of cress that grows in shallow streams.
Garden cress is ready to eat only a few days after sowing.
Common combinations
- fresh cress
- He topped the soup with a handful of fresh cress.
- a bunch of cress
- Pick up a bunch of cress on your way home.
- grow cress
- Children can grow cress quickly on a damp cloth.
- cress sandwich
- A cress sandwich is a classic English tea-time snack.
- sprinkle cress over something
- Sprinkle cress over the potatoes just before serving.
Synonyms and how they differ
- watercress
- A specific kind of cress that grows in water and has a stronger, pepperier taste.
- salad greens
- A general term for any leafy salad plants; it is much broader and does not name cress in particular.
Word family
- watercress noun
- A related plant grown in streams, eaten in salads and soups.
- cressy adjective
- Rare; describing a place or dish full of cress or tasting of it.
Commonly confused: cress or crest? cress or cresset?
cress vs crest
Crest sounds almost the same but means the top of a hill, a wave, or a bird's head, or a design on a shield.
cress vs cresset
A cresset is an old word for a metal container holding a burning light; it is rare and has nothing to do with the plant.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'cress' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Cress' is uncountable, so it takes 'some' and has no plural form. 'A cress' and 'two cresses' wrongly treat it as a countable noun, and 'many' cannot be used with an uncountable noun like this.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cress”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.