exchequer

pronunciation

How to pronounce exchequer in British English: UK [ɪksˈtʃekə(r)] word uk audio image

How to pronounce exchequer in American English: US [ˈɛksˌtʃɛkɚ, ɪksˈtʃɛkɚ] word us audio image

Word Origin

exchequer: exchequer: [13] Etymologically, an exchequer is something that has ‘checks’ or squares on it, and indeed the earliest use of the word in English was for ‘chessboard’. It came via Anglo- Norman escheker from medieval Latin scaccārium ‘chessboard’, a derivative of Vulgar Latin scaccus ‘check’ (source of English check ‘verify’). In the early Middle Ages the office of state, in both England and Normandy, which dealt with the collection and management of the royal revenue, used a table with a chequered cloth on it as a sort of rudimentary adding machine, counters being placed on various squares as an aid to calculation.And by the 14th century it had become the custom to refer to this department, from its chessboard-like table cloth, as the exchequer (Robert Mannyng, for instance, in his Chronicle 1331, records that ‘to Berwick came the king’s exchequer, Sir Hugh of Cressyngham he was chancellor, Walter of Admundesham he was treasurer’). Exchequer was the source of chequer [13], which by further reduction produced check ‘pattern of squares’.=> check, chess

exchequer (n.): c. 1300, from Anglo-French escheker "a chessboard," from Old French eschequier, from Medieval Latin scaccarium "chess board" (see check (n.1); also see checker (n.2)). Government financial sense began under the Norman kings of England and refers to a cloth divided in squares that covered a table on which accounts of revenue were reckoned with counters, and which apparently reminded people of a chess board. Respelled with an -x- based on the mistaken belief that it originally was a Latin ex- word.

1. Lower fees for students from poor families would mean a smaller outlay for the exchequer .

2. If mother nature can do the job instead , then it would represent a tidy saving for the country 's exchequer .

3. Smuggling costs the exchequer around 2.2 billion ( $ 3.5 billion ) a year in lost revenues .

4. As a former chancellor of the exchequer , mr brown is well placed to try to sort out britain 's fiscal mess .

5. He would not accept tyler 's " exchequer system , " and tyler vetoed clay 's bill to establish a national bank with branches in several states .