Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
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noun
An assessed tax, duty, or levy; billeting.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: India, Ireland, UK
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Usually preceded by good or (more commonly) bad: luck or success.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Ireland, UK, informal
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Bound; measure.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
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.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: rail-transport, railways, transport
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A bog, in particular a peat bog.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: dialectal, obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A piece of peat, or a turf, particularly when dried for use as fuel.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: dialectal, obsolete
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To levy a cess.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Ireland, UK
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
verb
To cease; to neglect.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: obsolete
Topics: law
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
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. The OED speculated that it either was from success or from assessment meaning a military or governmental exaction. The verb is attested in Middle English (cessen).
Possibly from an archaic dialect word meaning “bog”. According to the OED, from earlier suspiral (“water pipe, setting tank”).
From Middle French cesser. See cease.
