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tally

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English taly, also talye,[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman tallie,[5][6][3][7][8] recorded in Anglo-Norman from the early 14th century,[6] itself from Medieval Latin tallia, also talia,[6][3][2][9] from Latin tālea (“a cutting, rod, stick”).[5][6][7][2][10] In this sense the Medieval Latin word is found in England as early as 1166, in the Pipe Rolls of Henry II.[2][6] Dictionary.com and Collins connect the Latin noun with tālus (“heel”).[9][11] An earlier borrowing of Old French taille (“notch, cut”) was used in English in the same sense until the 17th century.[5][6] The verb is formed from the noun, though Etymonline takes it from Medieval Latin tallio (“to tax”).[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A stick, usually squared, marked across with notches showing the amount of a debt or payment, and split lengthwise so that each party kept a half: about 1440, in the Promptorium Parvulorum.[5][2][10] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-15th century,[6] Dictionary.com to 1275–1325.[9]

Semantic evolution

Notched tallies were the usual way of keeping accounts before writing became general.[6] When they gave way to written books, the link with sticks was lost, and the word was generalized to any recorded amount, including the points scored in a game:[10] the record of an amount due is found from 1580, in Tusser, and the total score in sport from 1856.[5][6] The Exchequer issued such cloven rods as receipts for taxes and loans to the Crown (from 1626).[5] Because the two halves matched exactly, a tally came to mean a counterpart, from 1647 in the OED (1651 in Barnhart);[5][2][10] the verb sense "to correspond, agree" followed in 1705.[6][2] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as a stick notched to match another, used to keep accounts.[12] In the 19th century the slang phrase live tally meant to live together without marrying, mainly in the north of England.[5][13][6] The verb, first meaning to notch a stick as a tally, came to mean to count (1542), to check each item of a cargo (1812) and, in baseball, to score a run (1867).[5][6] In market gardening a tally was five dozen of cabbages or bunches of turnips (1851).[5]

Timeline

  • c. 1440 – a notched stick recording a debt or payment; verb, to notch a tally, to score.[5][2]
  • 1542 – verb, to count, reckon up.[5]
  • 1580 – the record of an amount due; a score.[5]
  • 1626 – an Exchequer tally given as a receipt.[5]
  • 1647 – a counterpart; one of two matching halves.[5]
  • 1705 – verb, to correspond, agree.[6][2]
  • 1812 – verb, to check the items of a cargo.[5][6]
  • 1856 – a total score in a game.[5][6]
  • 1864 – live tally, to live together unmarried.[5][13]
  • 1867 – verb, to score, in baseball.[5][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A record of a count, an amount or a debit or credit; a running total: She kept a tally of the votes on the whiteboard.[11][4][5]
  2. The score in a game; in baseball, a run.[11][5]
  3. A ticket, label or mark used to identify or classify something.[11][5]
  4. A counterpart or duplicate, such as the counterfoil of a cheque.[11][5]
  5. (historical) A stick notched to record a debt or payment and split lengthwise, each party keeping one half.[11][4][5]

Verb

  1. To correspond or agree: His figures did not tally with the bank's.[11][5]
  2. To count up or record; to tabulate: The clerks tallied the ballots overnight.[11][4][5]
  3. To keep score.[11]
  4. To mark goods with an identifying tag.[11][5]
  5. In sport, to score a run or goal.[5]

Word family

  • tallier
  • tallyman
  • untallied
  • retally

Usage notes

The sailors' verb tally, to haul the lee sheets taut (about 1450), is of unknown origin,[5][8][4] and the obsolete card-playing verb tally, to deal at faro or basset (1706–1748), comes from French tailler (“to cut, deal”).[5]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ 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 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com