/ · 1894 Brewer’s · C · Cess
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Measure, as ex-cess, excess-ive. Out of all cess means excessively, i.e. ex (out of all) cess.
“Poor jade, is wrung in the withers out of all cess.”—Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV., ii. 1.
Cess. A tax, contracted from assessment (“sess”); as a “church-cess.” In Ireland the word is used sometimes as a contraction of success, meaning luck, as “bad cess to you!”
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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