exchequer

• n. 财源；国库；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.

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.

这使国库遭受了重大损失。

来自《权威词典》

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

财政大臣明天将向议会提出预算案.

来自《简明英汉词典》

3. The Chancellor of the Exchequer deals with taxes.

财政大臣负责税务.

来自《简明英汉词典》

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

财政大臣说经济即将复苏。

来自柯林斯例句

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

作为最伟大的财政大臣之一他将永远被铭记。

来自柯林斯例句