cense

present singular third person censes · participle present censing · participle past censed · past censed

1. To perfume with incense.

   The Salii sing and 'cense his altars round.

   1697, Virgil, “(please specify the book number)”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   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 genuine devotion to the service of God.

   1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by Harry Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 205

plural censes

1. obsoleteA census.

   1 more example

   [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 a Cenſe of all the people; and there vvere of Men, VVomen, and Children, above ſeven hundred thouſand that lived vvithin the Barres of his juriſdiction alone; […]

   1657, Jam. Howel [i.e., James Howell], “A Parallel, by Way of Corollary, betwixt London, and Other Great Cities of the World”, in Londinopolis; an Historicall Discourse or Perlustration of the City of London, the Imperial Chamber, and Chief Emporium of Great Britain: […], London: […] J[ohn] Streater, for Henry Twiford, George Sawbridge, Thomas Dring, and John Place, […], →OCLC, page 403

2. obsoleteA public rate or tax.

   as moneys a sum in name of a cense so returned

   a. 1626, Francis Bacon, A Certificate to His Majesty […] Touching the Penal Laws

3. 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

   1641, Ben Jonson, Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter