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 /

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

• excision
  noun
• excisable
  adjective

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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 ”

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Explanation

An excise tax is a special tax levied on specific products sold within a country. To excise something can also mean to get rid of it. Say, wouldn't it be nice if they would excise the excise taxes? An excise tax is simply an extra tax put on various products. Perhaps the most common examples are the taxes levied on tobacco and liquor, often called "sin taxes" because drinking and smoking are considered vices. There is also an excise tax on gasoline. To cover the tax, the seller will usually raise the price of the item. Interestingly, the word excise (ek-SIZE) used as a verb means to remove something by cutting it out. Good luck with excising the excise taxes!

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

excise excised excising

Parent company BrewDog PLC is still expected to pay its preferential creditor, HMRC, in full for £3.66m tax owed - mainly VAT and excise duty.

From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026

They did that because they don’t face the same excise tax on those fees that they do on fares.

From Slate ● May 12, 2026

On Monday he resurrected the hoary idea of suspending the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal excise tax on gas.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 11, 2026

The price for a gallon of gas has dropped almost 36 cents since the May 6 pause on the excise tax, according to a real-time monitor provided by the Indiana Attorney General’s Office.

From MarketWatch ● May 11, 2026

Moss wished he could reach inside of his brain and excise the part of it that tormented him.

From "Anger Is a Gift" by Mark Oshiro

When you start googling about the emoluments clause, the first thing that keeps coming up is “What ever happened to the emoluments clause,” as though it was excised from the Constitution.

From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2026

This is a film McElwee feels compelled to make, as if it were something living inside of him that had to be excised by any means necessary.

From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026

The movie is more condensed than the novel; Hitchcock accepted that the film medium cannot access the inner thoughts of a human being, and so significant swaths of the book were excised.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026

To confirm the source of the high frequency sound, researchers conducted excised larynx experiments.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 25, 2026

Weismann had surgically excised the tails of five generations of mice, then bred the mice to determine if the offspring would be born tailless.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

They’re dead-set on excising any shagginess that doesn’t fit their hidebound worldview, attacking textbooks and museums that dare to push beyond a straightforward explanation.

From Salon ● Jul. 23, 2026

This statue yassifies Trump, sucking out his buccal fat, virilizing his features, carefully excising all of the dainty feyness that, whether he likes it or not, is crucial to capturing the unique Trump disposition.

From Slate ● Jun. 2, 2026

You will respect your stepdaughter’s position by excising her from the trust, while ensuring you don’t leave a lot of swag for your stepson to squander.

From MarketWatch ● Dec. 20, 2025

In a fast-changing economy, businesses are automating some entry-level roles and excising middle layers of their org charts.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 13, 2025

In criticising the defects of our educational system, we have too long mistaken symptoms for causes, and believed that we were removing the latter when we were only palliating or at best excising the former.

From What Is and What Might Be A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular by Edmond Holmes

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Related Words

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

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