cess
/sɛs/
"cess" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cess” is an uncommon English word, ranked #64,259 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #64,259
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An assessed tax, duty, or levy; billeting.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cess |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sɛs/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #64,259 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cess” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cess is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /sɛs/. Corpus data places it at rank #64,259 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for cess, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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 us… The correct English form is cess, spelled C-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1An assessed tax, duty, or levy; billeting.
- 2Usually preceded by good or (more commonly) bad: luck or success.
- 3Bound; measure.
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).
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “cess”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-E-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /sɛs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.