Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Tax

Tax , noun

[French taxe, from taxer to tax, Latin taxare to touch, sharply, to feel, handle, to censure, value, estimate, from tangere, tactum, to touch. See Tangent, and compare Task, Taste.]

1.
A charge, especially a pecuniary burden which is imposed by authority.
(a)
A charge or burden laid upon persons or property for the support of a government.
A farmer of taxes is, of all creditors, proverbially the most rapacious. — Macaulay

Taxes are annual or perpetual, direct or indirect, etc.

(b)
Especially, the sum laid upon specific things, as upon polls, lands, houses, income, etc.; as, a land tax; a window tax; a tax on carriages, and the like.
(c)
A sum imposed or levied upon the members of a society to defray its expenses.
2.
A task exacted from one who is under control; a contribution or service, the rendering of which is imposed upon a subject.
3.
A disagreeable or burdensome duty or charge; as, a heavy tax on time or health.
4.
Charge; censure. [Obsolete] — Clarendon
5.
A lesson to be learned; a task. [Obsolete] — Johnson
Collocations (1)
Tax cart , a spring cart subject to a low tax. [English]

Tax (taks) , transitive verb

[Compare French taxer. See Tax, n.]

1.
To subject to the payment of a tax or taxes; to impose a tax upon; to lay a burden upon; especially, to exact money from for the support of government.
We are more heavily taxed by our idleness, pride, and folly than we are taxed by government. — Franklin
2.
(Law) To assess, fix, or determine judicially, the amount of; as, to tax the cost of an action in court.
3.
To charge; to accuse; also, to censure; -- often followed by with, rarely by of before an indirect object; as, to tax a man with pride.
I tax you, you elements, with unkindness. — Shakespeare
Men's virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes. — Dryden
Fear not now that men should tax thine honor. — M. Arnold