noun

• (British, Ireland, India) An assessed tax, duty, or levy; billeting.
  "EUDOX[US] But what is that which you call Cess? it is a Word sure unused amongst us here; therefore (I pray you) expound the same. IREN[EUS] Cess is none other than that which you yourself called Imposition, but is in a kind unacquainted perhaps unto you; for there are Cesses of sundry sorts: one is the Cessing of Soldiers upon the Countrey; [...] Another kind of Cess is, the imposing of Provisions for the Governours Housekeeping, [...]"
• (British, Ireland, informal) Usually preceded by good or (more commonly) bad: luck or success.
  ""Bad cess may attend you, where are you scampering to, you rambunctious"—but she could go no farther; the tears burst from her, and she gave way, without farther resistance, to an explosion of grief."
• (obsolete) Bound; measure.
  "The poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess."

verb

• (British, Ireland) To levy a cess.
  "...according to the quantity thereof, we may cess the said rent and allowance issuing thereout."

noun

• (rail transport) The area along either side of a railroad track which is kept at a lower level than the sleeper bottom, in order to provide drainage.
  "In April 1923, he was working with a gang of five others in Glasgow on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS). They were told to walk in the cess. But as it wasn't clear, they walked on the sleepers, each carrying a 70lb lifting screw on his shoulder. McGuinness was struck by a train and killed for want of a safe path."
• (obsolete, dialect) A bog, in particular a peat bog.
• (obsolete, dialect) A piece of peat, or a turf, particularly when dried for use as fuel.

verb

• (obsolete, law) To cease; to neglect.
  "And therefore, if there be lord, mesne, and tenant, and the tenant doth cess, and the mesne takes a wife and dies, his wife shall not have dower of the tenancy..."