Tallies

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Tally \Tal"ly\, n.; pl. {Tallies}. [OE. taile, taille, F. taille
     a cutting, cut tally, fr. tailler to cut, but influenced
     probably by taill['e], p. p. of tailler. See {Tailor}, and
     cf. {Tail} a limitation, {Taille}, {Tallage}.]
     1. Originally, a piece of wood on which notches or scores
        were cut, as the marks of number; later, one of two books,


        sheets of paper, etc., on which corresponding accounts
        were kept.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: In purshasing and selling, it was once customary for
           traders to have two sticks, or one stick cleft into two
           parts, and to mark with a score or notch, on each, the
           number or quantity of goods delivered, -- the seller
           keeping one stick, and the purchaser the other. Before
           the use of writing, this, or something like it, was the
           only method of keeping accounts; and tallies were
           received as evidence in courts of justice. In the
           English exchequer were tallies of loans, one part being
           kept in the exchequer, the other being given to the
           creditor in lieu of an obligation for money lent to
           government.
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     2. Hence, any account or score kept by notches or marks,
        whether on wood or paper, or in a book; especially, one
        kept in duplicate.
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     3. One thing made to suit another; a match; a mate.
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              They were framed the tallies for each other.
                                                    --Dryden.
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     4. A notch, mark, or score made on or in a tally; as, to make
        or earn a tally in a game.
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     5. A tally shop. See {Tally shop}, below.
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     {Tally shop}, a shop at which goods or articles are sold to
        customers on account, the account being kept in
        corresponding books, one called the tally, kept by the
        buyer, the other the counter tally, kept by the seller,
        and the payments being made weekly or otherwise by
        agreement. The trade thus regulated is called tally trade.
        --Eng. Encyc.
  
     {To strike tallies}, to act in correspondence, or alike.
        [Obs.] --Fuller.
        [1913 Webster]

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  TALLIES, evidence. The parts of a piece of wood out in two, which persons 
  use to denote the quantity of goods supplied by one to the other. Poth. Obl. 
  pt. 4, c. 1, art. 2, Sec. 7.