| 释义 |
▪ I. exchequer|ɛksˈtʃɛkə(r)|
Forms: 3–6 escheker(e, (4 eschekkere, 4–5 ess-, estcheker), 5–7 eschequer, -eer, excheker, -yr, (6 escheaquer, eschequier, -our, 7 exchecker), 6– exchequer.
[ME. escheker, a. OF. eschequier (mod.F. échiquier) = It. scaccario, med.L. scaccārium chess-board, f. scacc-us check, scacchi chess: see -arium, -er. The modern exchequer is a literary corruption, caused by mistaking es- in this word for the OF. es-:—L. ex-, as in eschange, L. excambium, now exchange, esploit, L. explicitum, now exploit, etc. When these words were refashioned after L. analogies, escheker was ignorantly altered in the same way. For the derivation see chequer, check.]
†I.
1. A chess-board; = chequer n.1 1. to play at (to) the escheker: to play at chess. Obs.
a1300Floriz & Bl. 344 He wule come þe nier And bidde þe pleie at þe escheker. Whane þescheker is forþ ibroȝt Biþute panes ne plei þu noȝt. c1380Sir Ferumb. 2224 Þo þat willieþ to leue at hame pleyeþ to þe eschekkere. a1420Hoccleve MS. Soc. Antiq. 134 fol. 263 (Halliw.) And alle be hit that in that place square Of the listes, I mene the estcheker. 1474Caxton Chesse 135 Ther ben as many poyntes in the eschequer voyde as fulle.
II. The King's Exchequer.
2. Under the Norman and Angevin kings of England: An office or department of state managed by the Treasurer, the Justiciary and the other judges of the King's Court, and certain Barons appointed by the King. Its functions combined the collection and administration of the royal revenues with the judicial determination of all causes relating to revenue. In the subsequent development of this institution, it was gradually divided into two distinct branches, the one being charged with judicial, the other with administrative functions: see 3, 4.
The name originally referred to the table covered with a cloth divided into squares, on which the accounts of the revenue were kept by means of counters. It is disputed whether the application of the word to the treasury and the tribunal connected with it originated in Normandy, or whether it was imported into Normandy from England. After Normandy became part of France, the supreme court of law in that province continued to bear the name of eschequier until the reign of Francis I, when this name was superseded by that of parlement.
[1292Britton i. i. §9 Ausi volums nous, qe a nos Eschekers a Westmoster et aylours eynt nos Thresorers et nos Barouns illucs jurisdiccioun. 1332Literæ Cantuarienses (Rolls) cccclv. I. 480 Noz seriantz..vienent a Canterbire a nostre Eschekier pur loure acounte rendre.] c1330R. Brunne Chron. (1810) 280 To Berwik cam þe kynge eschekere, Sir Hugh of Cressyngham he was chancelere, Walter of Admundesham he was tresorere. 1875Stubbs Const. Hist. I. xi. 377 The Exchequer of the Norman kings was the court in which the whole financial business of the country was transacted.
b. Chancellor of the Exchequer: an officer originally appointed in the reign of Henry III. as assistant to the treasurer; now the responsible finance minister of the United Kingdom: see chancellor 3.
c. Exchequer of the Jews (L. scaccarium Judæorum): in the thirteenth century, a department of the Exchequer which had charge of the collection of the revenues exacted from the Jews. (See C. Gross Exchequer of the Jews in Papers read at the Anglo-Jewish Exhibition, 1887.)
3. (More fully Court of Exchequer, Exchequer of Pleas.) A court of law, historically representing the Anglo-Norman exchequer in its judicial capacity. By the Judicature Act of 1873 it was converted into ‘The Exchequer Division’ of the High Court of Justice, and by Order in Council in 1881 this was merged in the Queen's Bench Division.
The jurisdiction of the court was theoretically confined to matters of revenue, but in practice was gradually extended to all kinds of cases (except ‘real actions’) by means of the legal fiction that the wrong suffered by the plaintiff had rendered him unable to pay his debts to the king. In addition to its jurisdiction at common law, the court had a jurisdiction in equity, abolished in 1841. In its latest form it consisted of the Chief Baron and five judges, called the Barons of the Exchequer; the Chancellor of the Exchequer was in theory a member of it, and was entitled to a voice in its decisions when it sat in equity.
1489–90Plumpton Corr. 90 Your matter in the Excheker is grevous; there is iij wryttes agaynst you. a1553Udall Royster D. v. vi. (1847) 85 For sure I will put you up into the Eschequer. 1661J. Stephens Procurations 34 It is an hundred years since the Certificate upon the Commission of Melius inquirendum..was returned into the Exchequer. 1732Pope Hor. Sat. ii. ii. 130 The Temple late two brother Serjeants saw..One lull'd th' Exchequer, and one stunn'd the Rolls. 1816J. Manning (title), The Practice of the Exchequer of Pleas. 1827[see estreat v. 1].
fig.1814Scott Wav. xxiv, I cannot call you into Exchequer, if you do not think proper to read my narrative.
b. As the designation of analogous courts in Scotland and Ireland: see quots. The Exchequer of Scotland was abolished in 1856 (19 and 20 Vict. c. 6), its functions being transferred to the Court of Session.
1816Encycl. Perth. IX. 204/2 The court of exchequer in Scotland has the same privileges and jurisdiction as that of England. 1833Act 3 & 4 Will. IV, c. 13 All the Powers at present exercised by the said Barons of the Court of Exchequer in Scotland shall from and after the passing of this Act cease and determine.
4. The office or department of the public service, which is charged with the receipt and custody of the moneys collected by the several departments of revenue.
In early use not distinguished from treasury; but the department of state called the Treasury has not since the 15th century exercised directly the function etymologically indicated by its name. The office charged with the custody of the revenues was in theory a branch of the Court of Exchequer (see 3), and was sometimes called the Lower Exchequer, the Exchequer of Receipt, or Receipt of Exchequer, to distinguish it from the judicial branch (Exchequer of Pleas). By the Exchequer and Audit Act 1866, the offices of Comptroller of the Exchequer and Auditor General, and the departments over which they presided, were united.
a1420Hoccleve De Reg. Princ. 68 Syn thou maist not be paied in the escheker. c1460Fortescue Abs. & Lim. Mon. (1714) 43 The expensys of which Houshold may sone be estemyd..by the Clerks of the Escheker. 1555Eden Decades 133 The fyfthe portion dewe to the kynges Excheker. 1574tr. Littleton's Tenures 33 b, To bee one of his [the kynges] chamberlaines of his receite of his Eschequer. 1601F. Tate Househ. Ord. Edw. II, §4 (1876) 7 The Contrerollour ought to keepe a countre roll against the tresorer of the warderobe..and testefy it in thexcheker upon the thresorers account. 1638Duke of Hamilton in H. Papers (Camden) 54 Itt onlie restheth hou he shall be payed, for in your excheker heire ther is none. 1672J. Cowell Interpr. s.v., The other [part of the court] is called The Receit of the Exchequer, which is properly employed in the receiving and paying of Money. 1753Chambers Cycl. Supp. s.v., Exchequer is more particularly used for a chamber, or apartment, in Westminster-hall, consisting of two parts..the lower Exchequer. 1788Priestley Lect. Hist. v. lxiv. 514 The money is lying in the exchequer to discharge the interest of the old debt. 1876Bancroft Hist. U.S. III. vi. 370 His [Grenville's] desire was for..a tellership in the exchequer.
b. the Exchequer: short for ‘the contents of the Exchequer’.
1647Clarendon Hist. Reb. i. (1843) 2/1 The exchequer being so exhausted with the debts of king James. 1671C. Hatton in Hatton Corr. (1878) 62 Y⊇ exchequer is at soe low an ebbe.
5. In extended sense: A royal or national treasury.
1565–73Cooper Thesaurus, Ad ærarium rationes has referre, to bring in his accompt to the escheker. 1600Holland Livy xxiv. xxiv. 525 The souldiours were..dayly mainteined and fed out of the Kings eschequer. 1756–7tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) IV. 222 The exchequer for Hungary is kept at Presburg. 1783Watson Philip III (1839) 221 For the benefit of his exchequer, he might sell the rest for slaves to his Christian subjects in Spain and Italy. 1844H. H. Wilson Brit. India II. 471 A surplus revenue and an unembarrassed exchequer. 1855Prescott Philip II, i. ii. (1857) 19 It seemed to his Spanish subjects that he rarely visited them, except when his exchequer required to be replenished.
b. fig. (Common in 17th c.; now rare.)
1589Nashe Greene's Arcadia Pref. (1616) 6 The Exchequer of eloquence, Sir John Cheeke. 1596― Saffron Walden 75 He would..bee a more rare Exchequer of the Muses, than rich Gaza for wealth. 1633Heywood Eng. Trav. ii. Wks. 1874 IV. 31 Of all the Treasures of my Hopes and Loue, You were th' Exchequer, they were Stor'd in you. 1660Boyle Seraph. Love xiv. (1700) 91 Love itself (that poor man's Surety and Exchequer). 1737M. Green Spleen (R.), School-helps I want, to..commit a theft On wealth in Greek exchequers left. 1881G. W. Cable Mme. Delphine ii. 10 The soul of honour..frank—the very exchequer of truth.
6. transf. The pecuniary possessions, the ‘cash-box’, ‘purse’, of a private person, a society, etc.
1618Bolton Florus (1636) 216 The poore should live upon their own exchequer. 1675Traherne Chr. Ethics xxviii. 455 A palace and a coach, an exchequer full of gold..are all the grounds of the respect that they pay us. 1685South Serm. (1737) I. x. 384 A command, or call to be liberal..shuts up every private man's exchequer. 1823Lamb Elia (1867) 32 These were..feeders of his exchequer..to whom he had occasionally been beholden for a loan. 1855Thackeray Fatal Boots iii, The..impoverished state of my exchequer.
7. attrib. and Comb., as exchequer-book, exchequer-bullion, exchequer-chancellor (rare), exchequer-standard. Also exchequer-bill, a bill of credit issued by authority of Parliament (first in 1696), bearing interest at the current rate; hence exchequer-bill-office, the office where exchequer-bills are issued and received; exchequer-bond, a bond (see bond 10) issued by the Exchequer at a fixed rate of interest and for a fixed period; exchequer-court = Court of Exchequer (see 3); also, ‘the Prerogative Court of the Archbishop of York’ (Bailey); exchequer-man, an official of the exchequer; exchequer-note = exchequer-bill; exchequer-tallies (see tally), the notched sticks with which the accounts of the Exchequer were formerly kept. Also exchequer-chamber.
1701Lond. Gaz. No. 3694/4 Lost..3 *Exchequer Bills of 5l. each. 1799Hist. Europe in Ann. Reg. 191/1 Exchequer-bills to the amount of {pstlg}3,000,000. 1855Macaulay Hist. Eng. IV. 698 In the midst of the general distress and confusion appeared the first Exchequer Bills.
1813Examiner 12 Apr. 237/1 A crowd of brokers..beset the *Exchequer-Bill-Office.
1859McCulloch Dict. Commerce 611 In 1853 *Exchequer Bonds were issued bearing interest at 23/4 per cent. for ten years.
1824R. Watt Bibl. Brit. 410/1 The *Exchequer Book, entitled Liber Niger Scaccarii.
1805P. L. D. Bonhote (title) Logarithm Tables, adapted to the calculation of *Exchequer Bullion.
1824Byron Juan xvi. xcviii, All *Exchequer Chancellors endeavour..to dispense with Cocker's rigours.
1721–1800Bailey, *Exchequer Court.
1853Marsden Early Purit. 401 A merchant of London was brought before the exchequer court for not paying tonnage and poundage.
1579Tomson Calvin's Serm. Tim. 223 1 We shall lack no *Eschequer man to put vs in shute. 1625in Rushw. Hist. Coll. (1659) I. 207 The Exchequer-man making his profit from the Kings wants.
1795Hist. Europe in Ann. Reg. 1796, 70/1 The discount given occasionally on *Exchequer notes was equally discreditable and alarming.
1653R. Mason in Bulwer Anthropomet. Let. to Author, And so insolently violate the *Exchequer standard of Heaven without a blush.
1690Child Disc. Trade (ed. 4) 21 Such as have disposed of his Majesty's *Exchequer-tallies.
▪ II. exchequer, v.|ɛksˈtʃɛkə(r)|
[f. prec.]
1. trans. To place in an exchequer or treasury; to treasure up. Obs. rare—1.
1705Hickeringill Priest-cr. ii. vii. 67 Vast Bulk and Heaps of Treasure exchequer'd in the Lateran Palace.
2. To proceed against (a person) in the Court of Exchequer.
1809Chron. in Ann. Reg. 408/2 The lord was exchequered; that is, the attorney-general filed his information against him. 1844J. T. J. Hewlett Parsons & W. xl, If ever he heard of Titus..shooting..on his grounds again, he would exchequer him as sure as he was born. 1864Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. IV. 215 Anselm was Exchequered for the imputed fault.
b. (See quot. 1867).
1828Southey in Q. Rev. XXXVIII. 93 The vessel was seized by a custom-house officer, brought back and exchequered. 1867Smyth Sailor's Word-bk, Exchequered, seized by government officers as contraband. |