cess

Meaning

Noun

1. An assessed tax, duty, or levy; billeting.
2. (informal) Usually preceded by good or (more commonly) bad: luck or success.
3. (obsolete) Bound; measure.

Verb

To levy a cess.

Verb

To cease; to neglect.

Synonyms

tax

duty

drainage ditch

levy

toll

assessment

gabelle

customs

🛃

due

Pronounced as (IPA)

/sɛs/

Etymology

For the first meaning below, the writings of Edmund Spenser, published 1633, point to a borrowing from Irish cís (“tax, tribute, cess, rent”), likely from Latin census.
Other senses: Uncertain. 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. OED speculated that it either was from success or from assessment meaning a military or governmental exaction.