hyssop

Noun

hyssop (countable and uncountable, plural hyssops)

1. Any 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. Any of several similar plants
3. Agastache foeniculum, blue giant hyssop.
4. (US, obsolete) The sagebrush (Artemisia spp.).
5. A plant used for the sprinkling of blood or water in purification rituals and at Passover, Origanum syriacum.
   • 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...Part 1 published in 1605, Part 2 in 1615, translated in 2003, Miguel de Cervantes and translated by Edith Grossman, Don Quixote, page 45