cess

Meanings

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

1. To levy a cess.

1. 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.
2. A bog, in particular a peat bog.
3. A piece of peat, or a turf, particularly when dried for use as fuel.

1. To cease; to neglect.

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. 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).