exchequer

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English escheker, also cheker,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman escheker,^[5][6][7][8] from Old French eschequier (“chessboard, counting table”) (modern échiquier),^[9][6][10] which corresponds to Italian scaccario and Medieval Latin scaccārium (“chessboard”),^[9][3] from scaccus (“check”), plural scacchī (“chess”).^[9][6] Etymonline and Ayto take the Latin scaccus as Vulgar Latin, and trace it through an Arabic borrowing to the Persian word for "king", the principal piece in chess, which is also the source of shah.^[7][11] The same French noun is the source of check and chequer.^[11][9][5] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the third quarter of the 12th century, as a chessboard, a reckoning board, a table with a chequered top and the royal Exchequer.^[12] The modern spelling with “ex-” is a learned alteration, from the mistaken idea that the “es-” of the Old French word was ex-, as in exchange and exploit;^[9][5][8][7] Barnhart adds that the ending “-quer” replaced “-ker” gradually after 1450.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A chessboard: before 1300 in the romance Floris and Blauncheflur, where the phrase "to play at the escheker" means to play chess.^[9] Barnhart dates this sense to about 1250,^[8] and Etymonline to about 1300.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The financial sense comes from the department of state under the Norman kings of England that collected the royal revenues and judged disputes about them: its accounts were reckoned with counters on a table covered with a cloth divided into squares, which looked like a chessboard.^{[9][6][7][13]} Barnhart notes that it is disputed whether this use of the term began in Normandy or in England.^[8] By the 14th century the department itself was called the exchequer: Robert Mannyng's Chronicle (about 1330) records that "the king's exchequer" came to Berwick.^[11][9] The OED notes that the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer was first created in the reign of Henry III as an assistant to the treasurer, and is now the finance minister of the United Kingdom.^[9] From 1489 the word also named the Court of Exchequer, a law court descended from the Anglo-Norman exchequer in its judicial role.^[9][14] Since the early 15th century it has also named the office that receives and keeps the public revenue.^[9][5] From the 16th century it was extended to any royal or national treasury (1565) and figuratively to a store of anything (1589, common in the 17th century),^[9] and in 1619 to the purse or funds of a private person or society,^[9][5] a sense still used humorously.^[15] The chessboard sense was obsolete by the late 15th century.^[9] Johnson (1755) still defined the word as the court to which all the crown's revenues are brought, and traced it, wrongly, to German Schatz (“treasure”).^[16]

Timeline

• before 1300 – a chessboard (obsolete after 1474).^[9][8]
• c. 1330 – the department of state of the English kings that dealt with the royal revenues, in Robert Mannyng's Chronicle.^[9][8][11]
• before 1420 – the office that receives and keeps the public revenue, in Hoccleve.^[9]
• 1489 – the Court of Exchequer.^[9]
• 1565 – a royal or national treasury.^[9]
• 1589 – figuratively, a store or treasury of anything.^[9]
• 1619 – the money or funds of a private person or society.^[9]
• 1811 – verb, to proceed against someone in the Court of Exchequer.^[9][14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (often capitalized) In Britain and some other countries, the government department that receives and pays out public funds; the national treasury: The new tax was expected to bring millions into the Exchequer.^[15][9][14]
2. (informal) One's personal funds or finances.^[15][9]
3. (history) The department of state in medieval England that collected and managed the royal revenue and judged disputes about it.^[14][9]
4. (history) The Court of Exchequer, an English superior court that dealt originally with revenue cases.^[14][9]
5. (obsolete, 1300–1474) A chessboard.^[9][5]

Verb

1. To bring a legal action against someone in the Court of Exchequer.^[14][9]

Related words

• check
• chequer
• checker
• chess
• checkmate
• shah
• exchange

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Mayhew, A. L.; Skeat, Walter W. (1888), A Concise Dictionary of Middle English from A.D. 1150 to 1580, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
13. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.