cense

verb

1. To perfume with incense.

   “The Salii sing and 'cense his altars round.”

   “Alternatively he would make a pretty good deacon: tall, well built, with quite a good voice, assiduously censing every nook and cranny, endowed with a certain histrionic talent, and perhaps also a genuine devotion to the service of God.”

noun

1. (obsolete)A census.

   “[I]n the year 1636, King Charles ſending to the Lord Mayor [of London], to make a ſcrutiny, vvhat number of Roman Catholiques and ſtrangers, there vvere in the City, he took occaſion thereby, to make a Cenſe of all the people; and there vvere of Men, VVomen, and Children, above ſeven hundred thouſand that lived vvithin the Barres of his juriſdiction alone; […]”

2. (obsolete)A public rate or tax.

   “as moneys a sum in name of a cense so returned”

3. (obsolete)condition; rank

   “if you write to a man, whose estate and cense as senses, you are familiar with, you may the bolder (to let a taske to his braine) venter on a knot”