[GNC] [OT] Why is Debit abbreviated Dr?

[David Cousens]

Derek

Latin past participles of creditum and debitum are debere and credere are a possible explanation. Another theory is the
Dr stands for debit record and Cr credit record. Another is that Dr is from debtors and Cr is from creditors. I favour
the first because Luca Pacciola who is often attributed (wrongly) with the first known  treatise in 1494 (Summa de
Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita) which had a section on double entry accounting  and formulated
the first documented use of the accounting equation used the terms debere (to owe) and credere (to entrust) to describe
the two sides of the basic accounting equation but there is also  evidence that Pacciola used Per (from) and A (to) in
journal entries. I don't know if any originals of Pacciola's original treatise have survived and most of the comments
are from an English translation in 1633 where Handson used Dr from the English debtor. Another translator Geejsbeek in
1914 suggested Dr comes from "in dare" (give) and "in havere" (receive). Pacciola apparently learned his accounting from
Arab traders in North Africa where his father was a merchant.  Benedikt Kotruljevic in 1458 also described double entry
accounting in a 1458 work on the Art of Trade published in Dubrovnik. I suspect both were describing methodology used by
the Arab traders.There is also evidence that double entry might have been used in 10th century Muslim tax office but
there is no definitive evidence. We will probably never know where the usage of the notation actually came from and the
historians will continue to argue about it forever.
David Cousens 



On Wed, 2018-09-05 at 09:59 -0400, Derek Atkins wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I'm an Engineer by training; I've picked up a ton of accounting
> knowledge just by being involved here for the past few decades, but
> there's one thing I've seen recently that I honestly don't underdstand
> and would appreciate if a CPA or Accounting Historian could answer.
> 
> Specifically, I've seen people show a transaction as:
> 
>     Dr ...  /  Cr ...
> 
> So CR as an abbreviation for Credit makes sense to me (CRedit).  But why
> is Debit abbreviated as DR?  There is no "R" in DEBIT.  So where does
> that come from?  I would have expected it to be "Db".
> 
> Just curious.
> 
> -derek
>