Exchequer
[ɪks'tʃekə;eks-] or [ɪks'tʃɛkɚ]
Definition
(n.) One of the superior courts of law; -- so called from a checkered cloth, which covers, or formerly covered, the table.
(n.) The department of state having charge of the collection and management of the royal revenue. [Eng.] Hence, the treasury; and, colloquially, pecuniary possessions in general; as, the company's exchequer is low.
(v. t.) To institute a process against (any one) in the Court of Exchequer.
Checker: Mara
Definition
n. a superior court which had formerly to do only with the revenue but now also with common law so named from the chequered cloth which formerly covered the table and on which the accounts were reckoned.—v.t. to proceed against a person in the Court of Exchequer.—Exchequer bill bill issued at the Exchequer under the authority of acts of parliament as security for money advanced to the government.—Chancellor of the Exchequer (see Chancellor); Court of Exchequer originally a revenue court became a division of the High Court of Justice in 1875 and is now merged in the Queen's Bench Division.
Checked by Lemuel
Examples
- My aunt, looking very like an immovable Chancellor of the Exchequer, would occasionally throw in an interruption or two, as 'Hear! Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- In pursuance of the same act, the bank cancelled exchequer bills to the amount of ? 1,775,027: 17s: 10?d. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Without it, I could never have gone to that Exchequer Coffee House, or taken Mrs Wilfer's lodgings. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- It was said of Gladstone that he was the greatest Chancellor of the Exchequer England ever saw, but that as a retail merchant he would soon have ruined himself by his bookkeeping. Frank Lewis Dyer. Edison, His Life and Inventions.
- This money, however, was for a long time, received at the exchequer, by weight, and not by tale. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Because he hates to be idle; though what he earns doesn't add much to our exchequer. Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native.
- If I could do so with cuffs, said the King, my creditors should have little reason to complain of an empty exchequer. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
Typed by Gilda