hyssop

plural hyssops

1. countableuncountableAny of several aromatic bushy herbs, of the genus Hyssopus, native to Southern Europe and once used medicinally.

   The life of one plant would be affected by another. Rue was definitely hostile to basil, rosemary to hyssop, but coriander, dill and chervil lived on the friendliest of terms[.]

   1940, Rosetta E. Clarkson, Green Enchantments: The Magic Spell of Gardens, The Macmillan Company, page 253

2. countableuncountableAny of several similar plants
3. Any of several similar plants:
   1. countableuncountableAgastache foeniculum, blue giant hyssop.
4. UScountableobsoleteuncountableThe sagebrush (Artemisia spp.).
5. countableuncountablebiblicalA plant used for the sprinkling of blood or water in purification rituals and at Passover, Origanum syriacum.

   1 more example

   All of them went in, including the housekeeper, and they found more than a hundrred large volumes, very nicely bound, and many smaller ones; and as soon as the housekeeper saw them, she hurried out of the room and quickly returned with a basin of holy water and a hyssop and said to the priest: "Take this, Señor Licentiate, and sprinkle this room, so that no enchanter, of the many in these books, can put a spell on us as punishment for wanting to drive them off the face of the earth."

   Part 1 published in 1605, Part 2 in 1615, translated in 2003, Miguel de Cervantes and translated by Edith Grossman, Don Quixote, page 45