Etymology

tax

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Today it means: Money or goods collected by a government (or an entity to whom the government has delegated this power, e.g. in tax farming) to fund itself and its services, for example by levying a charge on income, purchases (sales), property or harvest, other than that money which is collected by the government in exchange for specific goods (e.g. the purchase of surplus vehicles). Full definition →

Middle English taxe ← Middle French taxe ← Medieval Latin taxa
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tax · noun1

  1. Medieval Latin · derived fromtaxa
  2. Middle French · derived fromtaxe
  3. Middle English · inherited fromtaxe
  4. English todaytax

From Middle English taxe, from Middle French taxe, from Medieval Latin taxa, from Latin taxō (“to appraise, value, estimate; (medieval) to tax”). Doublet of task. Displaced native Old English gafol, which was also the word for “tribute” and “rent”.

tax · verb2

  1. Latin · derived fromtaxāre“to handle, to censure, to appraise, to compute”
  2. Anglo-Norman · derived fromtaxer“to impose a tax”
  3. Middle English · inherited fromtaxen
  4. English todaytax

From Middle English taxen, from Anglo-Norman taxer (“to impose a tax”), from Latin taxāre (“to handle, to censure, to appraise, to compute”).

Words from the same roots

Medieval Latintaxa all →

taxitaximeter

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.