cesses

Noun (1)

cess (plural cesses)

1. (India, Ireland, UK) An assessed tax, duty, or levy; billeting.
   • 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...1595-1596, Edmund Spenser, A View of the State of Ireland as it was in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth
2. (Ireland, UK, informal) Usually preceded by good or (more commonly) bad: luck or success.
   • "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.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, […]...
3. (obsolete) Bound; measure.
   • The poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.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...

Noun (2)

cess (plural cesses)

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.
   • 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...2022 August 10, Dr Mike Esbester, “New understandings from old incidents”, in RAIL, number 963, page 58
2. (dialectal, obsolete) A bog, in particular a peat bog.
3. (dialectal, obsolete) A piece of peat, or a turf, particularly when dried for use as fuel.

See all 8 meanings of cess