Contextualizebeta

bad cess

noun

Etymology

Uncertain. Occurs in print at least as early as 1831, when Samuel Lover used the expression as one already long-established. He unambiguously stated the derivation of cess in the malediction bad cess to be an abbreviation of success. OED speculated that it either was from success or from assessment meaning a military or governmental exaction.

Definitions

  1. Bad luck, failure, or evil befalling.

    • ...and so says the king to himself, "the divil receave the dhrop of that wine they shall get," says he, "... bad cess to the dhrop," says he, "my big-bellied bishop, to nourish your jolly red nose..."
    • Bad cess to me, but it's too provokin', so it is; — and why couldn't you tell me so at wanst?
    • Bad cess to the villains, but it's themselves that put me into the hobble, the thievin' rogues of the world.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for bad cess. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA