Ledgers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Books that meticulously record and maintain financial transactions and accounts
2. Volumes used for systematically documenting business financial activities and transactions
3. Registers that provide a detailed record of monetary exchanges and fiscal data

Etymology: The most surprising fact about "ledgers" is that the book was named after a plank. Before it meant an account book, "ledger" (in Middle English "liggere" or "ligger") referred to a large breviary, a beam, or a plank, and a dweller or inhabitant. The word comes from the Old English "liċġan", "to lie down," and so it originally described something that lay flat or in place. The connection runs through the idea of lying still. Related words in Frisian and Dutch still mean "floor board," "joist," or "beam," and the Dutch "legger" can mean a daybook. English "ledge" and "lie" share the same root, so a ledger was, in effect, the thing that lay flat on a desk or counter, and the record book took its name from that horizontal resting place. The plural "ledgers" is simply the plural of "ledger."

Synonyms: books, records