Census Meaning
/ˈsɛnsəs/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn official count or enumeration of members of a population (not necessarily human), usually residents or citizens in a particular region, often done at regular intervals.
nounCount, tally.
Sentence Examples
In the United States, there is a census every ten years.
"Trasianka" will be equalized with Belarusian language during the census.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The government conducts a national ____ every ten years to count every resident.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The national ____ is conducted every ten years to count the people.
Word Origin & History
Borrowed from Latin cēnsus, from cēnseō. See censor.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"As you know, the Imperium has never been able to take a census of the Fremen. Everyone thinks that there are but few wandering here and there in the desert. My Lord, I suspect an incredible secret has been kept on this planet: that the Fremen exist in vast numbers- vast- and it is they who control Arrakis."
— 1984, 43:03 from the start, in Dune (Science Fiction), spoken by Reverend Mother Ramallo, →OCLC:
"In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included ..."
— 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 7, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
"Each page of the schedule was crossruled with 8 lines, capable of censussing 8 individuals."
— 1893, Census of India, 1891, volume 23, page 347:
"Indeed, none of the recorded characteristics of buildings nor their location affected our counts of breeding Sparrows, which appeared to be distributed rather homogeneously across the urban areas we censused."
— 2008, Pierandrea Brichetti et al., “Recent declines in urban Italian Sparrow Passer (domesticus) italiae populations in northern Italy”, in Ibis, page 179, column 2:
"My initiation to waterfowl censussing took place in the early days of the A.W.E., as it is familiarly known, when I served as a junior to one of the ablest of the Witwatersrand pioneers, Royce Reed. The method used must remain one of the three basic methods of Transvaal waterfowl censussing, although it has certain inherent limitations."
— 1965, Fauna & Flora, page 46:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The government conducts a national ____ every ten years to count every resident.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The national ____ is conducted every ten years to count the people.