Scavage

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An old customs duty charged on merchandise brought into a town or port for sale, collected by the local authorities
2. A historical toll levied on goods entering or being sold within a town, paid to its officials as a form of tax
3. A medieval levy on wares carried into a market or harbour, imposed by the municipal government as a trading fee

Etymology: Scavage was a medieval toll: a fee charged on goods brought into a town or market for inspection and sale. The name comes from Old English "sċēawung", meaning a looking at or inspection, from the verb "sċēawian", "to look at" (the root of modern "show"). Over the centuries that sense of "showing" or "inspecting" was reshaped by Anglo-Norman speakers, who turned the word into "escauwage" and then "escavage", so an Old English word for looking at things ended up naming the payment made when merchants' wares were examined. The word is a doublet of "shewage", a term that kept closer to the original spelling and meaning. Its story is one of gradual reshaping: the same root gave English both the everyday verb "show" and this specialized trade word, which survives only in historical records.

Synonyms: toll, duty, tax