excise

¹ American  

[ek-sahyz, -sahys, ek-sahyz, ik-sahyz] / ˈɛk saɪz, -saɪs, ˈɛk saɪz, ɪkˈsaɪz /

noun

1. an internal tax or duty on certain commodities, as liquor or tobacco, levied on their manufacture, sale, or consumption within the country.

2. a tax levied for a license to carry on certain employments, pursue certain sports, etc.

3. British.  the branch of the civil service that collects excise taxes.

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verb (used with object)

excised, excising

1. to impose an excise on.

excise ² American  

[ik-sahyz] / ɪkˈsaɪz /

verb (used with object)

excised, excising

1. to expunge, as a passage or sentence, from a text.

2. to cut out or off, as a tumor.

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excise ¹ British  

noun

1. Also called: excise tax.  a tax on goods, such as spirits, produced for the home market

2. a tax paid for a licence to carry out various trades, sports, etc

3. that section of the government service responsible for the collection of excise, now part of HMRC

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excise ² British  

/ ɪkˈsaɪz, ɪkˈsɪʒən /

verb

1. to delete (a passage, sentence, etc); expunge

2. to remove (an organ, structure, or part) surgically

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Other Word Forms

• excisable adjective
• excision noun

Etymology

Origin of excise¹

1485–95; apparently < Middle Dutch excijs, variant of accijs < Medieval Latin accīsa tax, literally, a cut, noun use of feminine past participle of Latin accīdere to cut into, equivalent to ac- ac- + cīd-, variant stem of caedere to cut + -ta feminine past participle suffix, with dt > s

Origin of excise²

First recorded in 1570–80; from Latin excīsus “cut out, hewn down,” past participle of excīdere “to excide ”

Example Sentences

The group said excise duty accounted for about 70% of the price of an average bottle of spirits sold in the UK.

From BBC

Armed excise officers, with a sniffer dog, sped across the Ganges on a boat to raid an illegal distillery.

From BBC

Since April of this year, electric cars stopped being exempt from vehicle excise duty, due to a change made in the 2022 Budget.

From BBC

Pantheon Macro estimates the U.S. has collected $34 billion this month in customs and excise tax—on track to $400 billion over a year in tariff revenue.

From Barron's

Its opening words say: “All legislative powers ... shall be vested” in Congress, and the elected representatives “shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposes and excises.”

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• black out
• cross out
• cut out
• edit
• eradicate
• expunge
• exterminate
• stamp out