Forms: 4 synse, 4–6 sense, 5 scence, 5–6 sence, 5– cense. [f. CENSE sb.1, or shortened (in Eng. or Fr.) from ENCENSE, F. encenser.]
1. trans. To perfume with odors from burning incense; to burn incense before, offer incense to; esp. by way of worship or honor.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Milleres T., 155. This Absolon … Goth with a senser on the haly day, Sensing the wyves of the parisch fast.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys (1835), 49. In the temple … hem to scence bothe clene and pure.
1536. Wriothesley, Chron. (1875), I. 59. With … sensers to sense the Kinge and Queene as they rode by them.
1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 309 b. To cense them with Frankencense.
1675. J. Smith, Chr. Relig. Appeal, I. 17. He was censed in his Cratch by the Wise-men of the East.
1700. Dryden, Ovid’s Met., XII. 362. The Salii sing, and cense his altars round With Saban smoke.
1716–8. Lady M. W. Montague, Lett., I. xxxvii. 141. Two Slaves kneeling censed my hair, clothes, and handkerchief.
1811. H. Martyn, in Sargent, Life (1881), 289. The priest … at the time of incense censed me four times.
1852. Miss Yonge, Cameos (1877), IV. xvii. 189. A married clergyman who was about to cense the Queen.
fig. 1881. E. Purcell, in Academy, 22 Jan., 56. The reverent adulation with which the authoress censes her she-Ritualist.
b. transf. To fill as with the smoke of incense.
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 7 Sept., 4/2. Clouds waving, dreamily cense the air continually.
† 2. intr. To burn or offer incense. Obs.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 66. Censyn or caste þe sensere, thurifico.
c. 1449. Pecock, Repr., 169. It is not leeful and expedient that men … cense bifore hem.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 171/2. That they shold sacrefyse and sence tofore the goddes.
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M. (1596), 279/1. He … would cense, not with the incense of greefe and hatred, but with the sweet smelling incense of concord and vnitie.
1670. Cotton, Espernon, III. XII. 617. The man that cens’d at Vespers.
1732. Neal, Hist. Purit., I. 34. Censing and kneeling before them [images] is allowed.
