exchequer

• n. 財源；國庫；財政部

詞源同cheque,支票，帳目，帳目表，因形似棋盤而得名，後用來指財政部。ex誤認為是前綴ex-, 因而產生的拚寫訛誤。拚寫演變參照chess,check.

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 divided 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.

1. This resulted in a considerable loss to the exchequer.

這使國庫遭受了重大損失。

來自《權威詞典》

2. The Chancellor of Exchequer will present his budget to Parliament tomorrow.

財政大臣明天將向議會提出預算案.

來自《簡明英漢詞典》

3. The Chancellor of the Exchequer deals with taxes.

財政大臣負責稅務.

來自《簡明英漢詞典》

4. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that economic recovery is just around the corner.

財政大臣說經濟即將複蘇。

來自柯林斯例句

5. He will always be remembered as one of the great Chancellors of the Exchequer.

作為最偉大的財政大臣之一他將永遠被銘記。

來自柯林斯例句