Word.ws English Dictionary

bad cess

bad cess noun: bad luck, failure, or evil befalling.

Noun

bad cess (uncountable)

  1. (Ireland, UK) Bad luck, failure, or evil befalling.
    • ...and so says the king to himself, "the divil receave the dhrop of that wine they shall get," says he, "... bad cess to the dhrop," says he, "my big-bellied bishop, to nourish your jolly red nose..."1831, Samuel Lover, Legends and Stories of Ireland
    • Bad cess to me, but it's too provokin', so it is; — and why couldn't you tell me so at wanst?1834, Samuel Lover, Legends and Stories of Ireland

Examples of bad cess in a sentence

  • Bad cess to the villains, but it's themselves that put me into the hobble, the thievin' rogues of the world.1836, Philip Dixon Hardy, Legends, Tales, and Stories of Ireland:
  • Seen it with the ould Canal Company, bad cess to them, and all.1963, Michael Farrell, Thy Tears Might Cease, Hutchinson:

Origin of bad cess

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.

Questions about bad cess

What does bad cess mean?
Bad cess means bad luck, failure, or evil befalling.
How do you use bad cess in a sentence?
Bad cess to the villains, but it's themselves that put me into the hobble, the thievin' rogues of the world.
What part of speech is bad cess?
Bad cess is a noun.

Words near bad cess in the dictionary

  1. bad boys
  2. bad breath
  3. bad breaths
  4. bad business
  5. Bad Cannstatt
  6. bad cess
  7. bad check
  8. bad checks
  9. bad cholesterol
  10. bad cholesterols
  11. bad comes to worse

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bad cess (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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