[GNC] Cheque

[Adam H. Kerman]

3:14am -0000 03/05/26 Peter West <pbw at pbw.id.au> wrote:

>Yes, but... 

>The existence of an Exchequer in England is first recorded in 1110. (Wikipedia)

>exchequer(n.)
>c. 1300, "a chessboard, checkerboard," from Anglo-French escheker "a chessboard," from Old French eschequier, from Medieval Latin scaccarium "chess board" (see check <https://www.etymonline.com/word/check#etymonline_v_11208> (n.1); also see checker <https://www.etymonline.com/word/checker#etymonline_v_47185> (n.2)). The governmental sense of "department of the royal household concerned with the receipt, custody, and disbursement of revenue and with judicial determination of certain causes affecting crown revenues" 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 by using counters, and which reminded people of a chess board. Respelled with an -x- based on the mistaken belief that it originally was a Latin ex- word.

Good find! They were doing "New Latin" nonsense even back to the
beginning of Middle English!

>Hence: "a counter-register as a token of ownership used to check against, and prevent, loss or theft" (as in hat check, etc.), 1812. Hence also the financial use for "written order for money drawn on a bank, money draft" (1798, often spelled cheque), which was probably influenced by exchequer <https://www.etymonline.com/word/exchequer>.

>Etymonline

This stuff is fascinating. Thank you.