exchequer

• n. 財源; 国庫; 財務省

語源はcheque、小切手、account、勘定表と同じで、チェス盤に似ていることからこの名がついたが、後に大蔵省を指すのに使われるようになった。exは接頭辞ex-と間違われたため、スペルミスとなった。スペルの変遷については、チェス、チェックを参照のこと。

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 .

これは国庫に重大な損失を与えた。

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

財務相は明日、議会に予算案を提出する。

3.The Chancellor of the Exchequer deals with taxes.

財務大臣は税務を担当しています。

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

財務相は景気回復が近づいていると述べた。

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

最も偉大な財務大臣の一人として永遠に銘記されるだろう。