Also 5 bolroysche, 5–6 bul(l)- rysche, -rissh, -rysshe, 6–8 bullrush. [f. bull of uncertain origin (identified by some with BOLE1, cf. bulaxe, BOLE-AX; by others supposed to be an attrib. use of BULL sb.1) + RUSH. (The suggestion ‘pool-rush’ is baseless.)] A name applied in books to Scirpus lacustris, a tall rush growing in or near water; but in modern popular use, more usually, to Typha latifolia, the ‘Cat’s Tail’ or ‘Reed-mace.’ In the Bible applied to the Papyrus of Egypt.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 244. Holrysche or bulrysche, papirus.
c. 1475. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 785. Hec papirus, bolroysche.
1483. Act 1 Rich. III., viii. Preamb., Dyers … upon the Lists of the same Clothes festen and sowe great Risshes, called Bullrisshes.
1611. Bible, Ex. ii. 3. She tooke for him an arke of bul-rushes.
1652. Culpepper, Eng. Physic., 191. The Bul-rushes and others of the soft and smooth kindes.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xiii. 153. There are many plants nearly allied to the grasses; as … Club-rush or Bulrush.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., I. 46. Nodding bulrush down its drowk head hings.
1867. Parkman, Jesuits N. Amer., xvi. (1875), 215. A dense growth of tall bulrushes.
2. fig. In allusion to the fragility of the bulrush, or its delusive appearance of strength.
1646. J. Hall, Horæ Vac., 37. We leane on the bulrush of our oune merits.
1672. Bramhall, Vind. Grotius, i. Compare those … Fellows, and Scholars, who were turned out of our Universities, with those bulrushes in comparison, whom for the most part they introduced.
1861. Motley, Dutch Rep., II. 250. To wield so slight a bulrush against a man who had just been girded with the consecrated sword of the Pope.
3. Phrases. To bow the head like a bulrush, in allusion to Isaiah lviii. 8. † To seek (find) a knot in a bulrush, Lat. nodum in scirpo quærere, to find difficulties where there are none. So sarcastically, † To take away every knot in the bulrush.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 436. Myne opposed adversary will seeke after a knott in a Bullrush as the Proverbe is.
1611. Bible, Isa. lviii. 8. Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush?
1662. J. Chandler, Van Helmont’s Oriat., 199. The Schools did presume to have taken away every knot in the Bulrush.
1767. Fordyce, Serm. Yng. Wom., II. xi. 162. Do we wish you … to hang your heads like a bulrush?
4. Comb. and attrib., as bulrush-bed, -bridge, -cradle, -fetter, -hurdle; also bulrush-like adj.
1675. Hobbes, Odyss. (1677), 66. Then on a *bulrush-bed himself he laid.
1842. Tennyson, Morte d’Arth., 135. Sir Bedivere … plunged Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch’d the word.
1706. Phillips, *Bulrush Bridge (in the Art of War) a Bridge made of many bundles of Bullrushes bound together and cover’d with Planks.
1627. N. Carpenter, Achitophel (1629), 27. Whence could Moses haue better deriued his greatnesse … than from the *bulrush cradle?
1655. H. Vaughan, Silex Scint. (1858), 108. Shall straw and *bul-rush-fetters temper his short hour?
1658. Rowland, trans. Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 916. They then dry it [the wax] on a *bul-rush hurdle by day and by night in the open air.
1628. Wither, Brit. Rememb., I. 1250. To shake the head, or hang it *Bulrush-like.
