köken: From Middle Dutch croes, ultimately from the root of kroezen (“to be tightly curled”), from Proto-Germanic *kruzlǭ (“bent or crooked object, curl”), possibly from Pre-Germanic *grus-, contracted from Proto-Indo-European *gurus- (“twist, curl”), same source as Persian گرس (gors, “braid of hair”).
greater duckweed (Spirodela polyrhiza) · duckweed, a general term for plants in the subfamily Lemnoideae · synonym of 田字草 (denjisō, “Marsilea quadrifolia”)
köken: Norman & Mei (1976) proposes a native Austroasiatic origin and compares it to Mon ဗေဝ် (“to ride low in the water”) (< Proto-Mon-Khmer *ber (“to float”)); they also consider Chinese 薸 (OC *bew) to be a loanword from Austroasiatic. However, Liu (1999) proposes a possible relation of 薸 (OC *bew) to 漂 (OC *pʰew, “to float; to drift”), and Sagart (2008) counts 薸 (OC *bew) among "either East Asian…