# census

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈsɛnsəs/ · frequency rank #5,198

## Definitions
1. An official count or enumeration of members of a population (not necessarily human), usually residents or citizens in a particular region, often done at regular intervals.
2. Count, tally.
3. A type of tax levied by feudal lords on peasants.
4. A count of the number of individual patterns within a larger pattern, most often the ash of a soup or a methuselah.

## Etymology
Borrowed from Latin cēnsus, from cēnseō. See censor.

## Easily confused with
- **cents** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/census-vs-cents)
- **consul** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/census-vs-consul)
- **censuses** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/census-vs-censuses)
- **censor** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/censor-vs-census)
- **ceases** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/ceases-vs-census)
- **Celsius** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/celsius-vs-census)
- **censure** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/censure-vs-census)

## Common misspellings (9)
`ccensus`, `cennsus`, `censsu`, `censsus`, `censuss`, `cenuss`, `cesnus`, `cnesus`, `ecnsus`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/census