# tax

Pronunciation: say "TAKS" /tæks/

## Noun

1. Money or goods that a government collects from people and businesses to fund itself and its services, often charged on income, purchases, or property.
   - Simple: Money that a government collects from people and businesses to pay for public services.
   - _The new budget raises tax on tobacco and alcohol._
   - _Workers in higher brackets pay more tax on their earnings._
4. A charge of money, food, labor, or the like exacted by a person or organization from someone under their control, such as a required contribution or service.
   - Simple: A charge of money, goods, or work that someone in charge makes you give them.
   - _Rebel commanders imposed a tax on farmers in the territory they held, payable in rice or cash._
   - _Villagers owed a yearly tax of labor to the estate's owner._
5. A burdensome demand that strains the time, energy, or resources of a person or thing.
   - Simple: A heavy demand that puts a strain on someone or something.
   - _The long campaign proved a serious tax on the candidate's health._
   - _Endless meetings became a tax on the team's productivity._

## Verb

2. To make a person or business pay a tax, or to put a tax on goods, income, property, or an activity.
   - Simple: To make people or companies pay money to the government, or to add this charge to something.
   - _The federal government taxes corporations on their annual profits._
   - _Authorities tax residents according to how much they earn._
3. To place strain on someone or something by demanding more than can easily be given.
   - Simple: To ask too much of someone or something, making it work very hard.
   - _The constant deadlines taxed her patience to the limit._
   - _Steep mountain trails tax even experienced hikers._
6. To accuse someone of a fault, often confronting them with it directly.
   - Simple: To say that someone has done something wrong.
   - _The committee taxed the official with misusing public funds._
   - _No one on the staff dared to tax the director with favoritism, though everyone had noticed it._

## Other meanings

- (verb) To examine accounts closely in order to allow or disallow individual items.

## Origin

**Meanings 1, 4–5** — From Middle English "taxe", via Middle French "taxe" and Medieval Latin "taxa", from Latin "taxō" ("to appraise, value, estimate", and in medieval use "to tax"). It is a doublet of "task" and displaced the native Old English "gafol", which also meant "tribute" and "rent".
**Meanings 2–3, 6** — The verb goes back to Latin "taxāre," which meant "to handle, to censure, to appraise, to compute." Anglo-Norman made it "taxer" ("to impose a tax"), and Middle English took that as "taxen."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/tax (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).