Also SESS(E. [The etymological spelling is SESS, aphetic f. ASSESS sb. in same sense: the spelling cess, due app. to mistaken notion of the etymology, has been more or less established in some senses.]
1. An assessment, tax or levy: in various spec. applications.
a. A rate levied by local authority and for local purposes. Now superseded in general English use by rate, but frequent dial.; in Ireland it is still the official term. Church cess: see quot. 1868.
1531. Act 22 Hen. VIII., c. 3 § 1. Diuers and sundry Cesses, Scots, and Taxes.
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 73. To appoint … what time the Sess should continue.
1642. Vestry Bks. (Surtees), 104. Received more for a cease of 2d. pound, 19s. 1d. ob.
a. 1745. Swift, Wks. (1841), II. 49. Unless when the parish cess was gathered.
1827. Hallam, Const. Hist. (1876), III. xviii. 374. A cess or permanent composition for every plough-land.
1847. Barham, Ingol. Leg. (1877), 206. There’s the rent and the rates and the sesses.
1851. Ht. Martineau, Hist. Peace (1877), III. IV. ix. 35. The Tories were disposed to uphold the dues of the Church, even to the last penny of Church-cess.
1863. Possibil. of Creation, 93. We have our world lit up regularly without any lamp cess being levied.
1868. Pall Mall Gaz., 29 June, 3/1. The Act of the 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 37 … abolished … the church vestry cess, as church rates in Ireland were then called.
1877. Holderness Gloss. (E. D. S.), Cess, a parochial or municipal rate.
b. Scotland. The land tax.
1662. Sc. Acts (1820), VII. 409. Act in favour of [the Earls of Queensberry and Annandale] for payment of a moneths Cesse advanced by them for the Shire of Dumfreis. Ibid. (1678), VIII. 221.
1701. J. Law, Counc. Trade, 133. All extraordinary taxes as cess, pole, hearth-money, and such like grievous and unequal dutys.
1702. Lond. Gaz., No. 3824/2. An Act [Scotland] for a Supply of Ten Months and half’s Cess upon Land-Rents, received the Royal Assent.
c. 1706. in Sc. Pasquils (1868), 388. From paying us our Darien Costs, By laying on cess, and new imposts.
1746–7. Act 20 Geo. II., c. 50 § 2. Their respective proportions of His Majesty’s cess or land tax.
c. India. A tax levied for a specific object; often with prefixed word defining the object.
1817. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, II. V. i. 309. With respect to the cesses or arbitrary taxes.
1841. Elphinstone, Hist. Ind., 133. Various taxes and cesses, some falling directly on the land, and others more or less circuitously affecting the cultivator.
1883. J. Dacosta, in Contemp. Rev., Oct., 584. Imposing additional taxes upon land in Bengal,… such as the road cess, the irrigation cess, the public works cess, and the education cess.
† 2. Ireland. The obligation to supply the soldiers and the household of the lord deputy with provisions at prices ‘assessed’ or fixed by government; hence loosely used for military exactions generally. Obs. exc. Hist.
1571. Campion, Hist. Irel., II. x. (1633), 126. With sesse and souldiours.
1586. J. Hooker, Girald. Irel., in Holinshed, II. 144/2. Cesse is … a prerogatiue of the prince, to impose vpon the countrie a certeine proportion of all kind of vittels for men and horsse, to be deliuered at a reasonable price called the queen’s price, to all and euerie such souldiors as she is contented to be at charge withall, and so much as is thought competent for the lord deputies house.
1596. Spenser, State Irel., 56.
1612. Davies, Why Ireland, &c. (1787), 20. By their continual cess and extortion [p. 159 sess of soldiers].
1628. trans. Camden’s Hist. Eliz., II. (1688), 219. Ceass … is an Exaction of Victuals at a certain Rate or Price … for the Maintenance of the Lord Deputie’s Houshold and Garrison-souldiers.
1809. Tomlins, Law Dict., Cesse or cease in Ireland … for soldiers in garrison.
† 3. Assessment, valuation, estimation. In phrase out of all cesse. Obs.
1588. Marprel. Epit., 49. This … ouerthroweth the puritans out of all cesse.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. i. 8. The poore Iade is wrung in the withers, out of all cesse.
4. Comb., as cess-gatherer, -payer; cess-tax = 2.
1877. E. Peacock, N.-W. Linc. Gloss. (E. D. S.), Cess-getherer, one who gathers a local tax. ‘John Lockwood, th’ cess-getherer’s been for th’ Court o’ Sewers rate.’
1880. Edin. Rev., Jan., 135. (Ireland) The associated cess-payers are not chosen by election.
1882. J. Taylor, Sc. Covenanters, 180. Renwick was brought to trial for teaching that it was unlawful to pay the cess-tax.
