exchequer的词源

英文词源

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 pided 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.

中文词源

exchequer（国库）：用来计算国库收入的棋盘一样的大桌子

在16世纪以前，欧洲人还不会使用阿拉伯数字，大部分人用来计数的是罗马数字。这种数字计算起来很不方便。在诺曼王朝时期，英国的国库管理人员在计算国库收入时，会在一张大桌子上铺上印有宛如棋盘的方格图案的桌布，然后在方格中摆上代表数字的筹码，利用筹码和方格进行计算。因为桌布的图案很像棋盘，人们就用法语单词escheker（chessboard，棋盘）来表示这张大桌子。由于这张大桌子是国库的象征，因此escheker一词也常常被用来表示国库本身。进入英语后，该词的拼写形式逐渐演变为exchequer，原本表示那张大桌子的含义被人遗忘，仅仅用来表示“国库、财政部”。

exchequer： [ɪks'tʃekə; eks-] n.国库，财政部，财源

该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：exchequer 词源，exchequer 含义。

exchequer：财政部

词源同cheque,支票，帐目，帐目表，因形似棋盘而得名，后用来指财政部。ex误认为是前缀ex-, 因而产生的拼写讹误。拼写演变参照chess,check.