Wikimore

See also: Cess and ċess

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

cess

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

For the first meaning below, the writings of Edmund Spenser, published 1633, point to a borrowing from Irish Category:English terms derived from Irish#CESS cís (“tax, tribute, cess, rent”),^[1] likely from Latin Category:English terms derived from Latin#CESS census.^[2]

Other senses: UncertainCategory:English terms with unknown etymologies#CESS. Occurs in print at least as early as 1831, when Samuel Lover used the expression as one already long-established. He unambiguously stated the derivation of cess in the malediction bad cess to be an abbreviation of success.^[3] The OED speculated that it either was from success or from assessment meaning a military or governmental exaction.^[4] The verb is attested in Middle English Category:English terms inherited from Middle English#CESS Category:English terms derived from Middle English#CESS (cessen).

Noun

cess (plural cesses)Category:English lemmas#CESS Category:English nouns#CESS Category:English countable nouns#CESS Category:English entries with incorrect language header#CESS Category:Pages with entries#CESS Category:Pages with 3 entries#CESS

(British Category:British English#CESS, Ireland Category:Irish English#CESS, India Category:Indian English#CESS) An assessed tax, duty, or levy; billeting.
- 1595-1596, Edmund Spenser, A View of the State of Ireland as it was in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth‎:
  EUDOX[US] But what is that which you call Cess? it is a Word sure unused amongst us here; therefore (I pray you) expound the same. IREN[EUS] Cess is none other than that which you yourself called Imposition, but is in a kind unacquainted perhaps unto you; for there are Cesses of sundry sorts: one is the Cessing of Soldiers upon the Countrey; [...] Another kind of Cess is, the imposing of Provisions for the Governours Housekeeping, [...]
  Category:English terms with quotations#CESS
- 1967, G. R. Madan, Indian Social Problems, volume 2, →ISBN, page 225:
  The act provides for a levy of a cess on all coal and coke despatched from collieries in India, at such rate, not less than twenty-five paise and not more than fifty paise per ton, as may be fixed by the Central Government.
  Category:English terms with quotations#CESS
- 2006, The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, Georg Thieme Verlag, page 76:
  Therefore it was proposed to levy a cess on local authorities which are entrusted with the duty of supplying water under the law by or under which they are constituted and on certain specified industries.
  Category:English terms with quotations#CESS
- 2025 September 5, Jagriti Chandra, “Cars get cheaper, festive sales likely to hit top gear. Sub-4 metre cars with engines below 1,200 cc and 1,500 cc to attract 18% GST; dealers expect increased buyer interest in price-sensitive segments; bigger cars will invite a 40% GST, but removal of cess will boost net savings on purchase”, in The Hindu‎:
  The Goods and Services Tax (GST) overhaul will make cars cheaper this festive season across segments. Entry-level and mid-segment cars priced up to ₹14 lakh will see up to a 13% reduction in GST and cess, making them more attractive to a price-sensitive customer base. High-end cars with engines above 1200 cc are set to become 5–10% cheaper. Small cars that run on petrol, LPG and CNG with engines below 1200 cc, and diesel cars of up to 1500 cc and with a length under 4 metres will attract a GST of 18% instead of 28%. The cess of 1% and 3% will no longer be applicable.
  Category:English terms with quotations#CESS
(British Category:British English#CESS, Ireland Category:Irish English#CESS, informal Category:English informal terms#CESS) Usually preceded by good or (more commonly) bad: luck or success.
- 1852 November, O’Hara Family, “Clough Fionn; or, The Stone of Destiny”, in The Dublin University Magazine, a Literary and Political Journal, volume XL, number CCXXXIX, Dublin: James McGlashan, […]; London: W[illia]m S[omerville] Orr and Company, →OCLC, chapter XI, page 557:
  "Bad cess may attend you, where are you scampering to, you rambunctious"—but she could go no farther; the tears burst from her, and she gave way, without farther resistance, to an explosion of grief.
  Category:English terms with quotations#CESS
- 1962, News for Farmer Cooperatives‎, Information Office, Farm Credit Administration:
  Midland has had good cess with using minute commercials eight television stations, cited as one example of modernizing its advertising.
  Category:English terms with quotations#CESS
- 1965, Canada Month‎:
  It is good cess to feel the warmth and sincerity of this couple who fill the role of the Queen's representative in Canada.
  Category:English terms with quotations#CESS
- 2004, Kevin O'Malley, Inside, →ISBN, page 37:
  Bad cess to it, b'ys! Where's the blessed ting, at all, at all? Bad cess to it!
  Category:English terms with quotations#CESS
(obsolete Category:English terms with obsolete senses#CESS) Bound; measure.
- c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
  The poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.
  Category:English terms with quotations#CESS

Verb

cess (third-person singular simple present cesses, present participle cessing, simple past and past participle cessed)Category:English lemmas#CESS Category:English verbs#CESS Category:English entries with incorrect language header#CESS Category:Pages with entries#CESS Category:Pages with 3 entries#CESS

(British Category:British English#CESS, Ireland Category:Irish English#CESS) To levy a cess.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, A View of the Present State of Irelande‎:
  ...according to the quantity thereof, we may cess the said rent and allowance issuing thereout.
  Category:English terms with quotations#CESS

Derived terms

Etymology 2

Possibly from an archaic dialect word meaning “bog”. According to the OED, from earlier suspiral (“water pipe, setting tank”).^[5]

Noun

the **cess** is the low area either side of the track

cess (plural cesses)Category:English lemmas#CESS Category:English nouns#CESS Category:English countable nouns#CESS Category:English entries with incorrect language header#CESS Category:Pages with entries#CESS Category:Pages with 3 entries#CESS

(rail transport Category:en:Rail transportation#CESS) The area along either side of a railroad track which is kept at a lower level than the sleeper bottom, in order to provide drainage.
- 2022 August 10, Dr Mike Esbester, “New understandings from old incidents”, in RAIL, number 963, page 58:
  In April 1923, he was working with a gang of five others in Glasgow on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS). They were told to walk in the cess. But as it wasn't clear, they walked on the sleepers, each carrying a 70lb lifting screw on his shoulder. McGuinness was struck by a train and killed for want of a safe path.
  Category:English terms with quotations#CESS
(obsolete Category:English terms with obsolete senses#CESS, dialect Category:English dialectal terms#CESS) A bog, in particular a peat bog.
(obsolete Category:English terms with obsolete senses#CESS, dialect Category:English dialectal terms#CESS) A piece of peat, or a turf, particularly when dried for use as fuel.

Derived terms

References

↑ https://dil.ie/9231
↑ Thurneysen, Rudolf (1940) [1909], D. A. Binchy and Osborn Bergin, transl., A Grammar of Old Irish, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, translation of Handbuch des Alt-Irischen (in German), →ISBN, § 268, page 172; reprinted 2017
↑ Lover, Samuel: Legends and Stories of Ireland. 1831 Publishers Wakeman, Dublin; Baldwin and Cradock, London; Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh.
↑ Murray, J.A.H. The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (2 vols). Publisher: Oxford University Press. 1971. ISBN: 978-0198611172
↑ James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Cess”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC.