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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

tax.

Money or goods collected by a government (or an entity to whom the government has delegated this power, e.g. in tax farming) to fund itself and its services, for example by levying a charge on income, purchases (sales), property or harvest, other than that money which is collected by the government in exchange for specific goods (e.g. the purchase of surplus vehicles).

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/tæks/
  1. Money or goods collected by a government (or an entity to whom the government has delegated this power, e.g. in tax farming) to fund itself and its services, for example by levying a charge on income, purchases (sales), property or harvest, other than that money which is collected by the government in exchange for specific goods (e.g. the purchase of surplus vehicles).

    countable · uncountable
  2. A charge (of money, food, labor, etc) collected by a person, organization, etc; something required (exacted) from someone who is (really or notionally) under the control of the taxer, such as a contribution or service.

    countable · uncountable
  3. A burdensome demand

    figuratively · uncountable
    a heavy tax on time or health
Where this word comes from

From Middle English taxe, from Middle French taxe, from Medieval Latin taxa, from Latin taxō (“to appraise, value, estimate; (medieval) to tax”). Doublet of task. Displaced native Old English gafol, which was also the word for “tribute” and “rent”.

verb/tæks/
  1. To impose and collect a tax from (a person or company).

    transitive
    Some think to tax the wealthy is the fairest.
  2. To impose and collect a tax on (something).

    transitive
    Some think to tax wealth is destructive of a private sector.
  3. To make excessive demands on.

    transitive
    Do not tax my patience.
  4. To accuse.

    transitive
  5. To examine accounts in order to allow or disallow items.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English taxen, from Anglo-Norman taxer (“to impose a tax”), from Latin taxāre (“to handle, to censure, to appraise, to compute”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.