census

American  

[sen-suhs] / ˈsɛn səs /

noun

• censuses
  plural

1. an official enumeration of the population, with details as to age, sex or gender, occupation, etc.

2. (in ancient Rome) the registration of citizens and their property, for purposes of taxation.

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verb (used with object)

1. to take a census of (a country, city, etc.).

   The entire nation is censused every 10 years.

census British  

/ ˈsɛnsəs /

noun

1. an official periodic count of a population including such information as sex, age, occupation, etc

2. any offical count

   a traffic census

3. (in ancient Rome) a registration of the population and a property evaluation for purposes of taxation

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• precensus
  noun
• censual
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• censuses
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of census

First recorded in 1605–15; from Latin: “a listing and property assessment of citizens,” equivalent to cēns(ēre) “to assess, register (citizens) in a census” + -tus suffix of verb action; for -s- in place of -st- see censor

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Explanation

If you live in the U.S., every ten years you'll participate in a census, a process for counting people. The information collected is used to plan for schools, transportation, social services people will need, and also for determining congressional districts. On the census form you’ll be asked how many people live in your house, their ages, and ethnic and racial backgrounds. With this, the government can plan facilities and also track population trends — whether cities are growing or shrinking, what ethnic groups make up our population, and where they live. We get the word and the idea from the Romans, who registered citizens and their property so they could be taxed. The first U.S. census was held in 1790.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

census censuses

The district qualified because census takers grouped the retail corridor with adjacent poorer neighborhoods and relied only on residential data.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2026

With census data showing there are about 73 million children in the U.S. and SpaceX closing at $147.96 Monday, Musk’s pledge would be worth close to $11 billion.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2026

Obura led a major reassessment of coral health published in Nature on Thursday that reported a sharp deterioration in reef-building species since the last global census in 2008.

From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026

Using their model alongside early census records, the researchers estimated that approximately 2.06 million excess deaths occurred between 1788 and 1861.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026

Yet Farmer, when conducting his health census, had been told that TB was not a special problem in Carabayllo.

From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French

Researchers believe those lower estimates were influenced by the widespread population losses caused by disease, frontier violence, and systemic oppression before the earliest Australian censuses were conducted.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026

Between the censuses of 2010 and 2020, the number of Americans reporting that they belonged to more than one race jumped by 276%.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025

At 2.6%, it’s a slight gain over the 2.1% recorded in the 1990, 2000 and 2010 U.S. censuses.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2025

However, between the 2017 and 2022 censuses, that decline accelerated dramatically.

From Salon ● Feb. 9, 2025

His Cange census allowed him to begin building files and to create a baseline against which future censuses could measure how well his system was working.

From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French

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Related Words

• enumeration
• poll

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