/sɛns/
OriginBackformation from incense
- To perfume with incense.
“The Salii sing and 'cense his altars round.”
“Alternatively he would make a pretty good deacon: tall, well built, with quite a good voice, assiduously censing every nook and cranny, endowed with a certain histrionic talent, and perhaps also a gen”
- obsoleteA census.
“[I]n the year 1636, King Charles ſending to the Lord Mayor [of London], to make a ſcrutiny, vvhat number of Roman Catholiques and ſtrangers, there vvere in the City, he took occaſion thereby, to make ”
- obsoleteA public rate or tax.
“as moneys a sum in name of a cense so returned”
- obsoletecondition; rank
“if you write to a man, whose estate and cense as senses, you are familiar with, you may the bolder (to let a taske to his braine) venter on a knot”
Formscenses(present, singular, third-person) · censing(participle, present) · censed(participle, past) · censed(past) · censes(plural)