exchequer

/ˈɛksˌʧɛkər/

Other forms: exchequers

Exchequer is a British term for the individual in the government who is in charge of the money: the treasurer. Sometimes it refers to the office in which all the money is kept, the treasury itself.

If you follow British government, you may have noticed that although they have a democracy much like ours, some things are very different. One of them is that the person in the government who is in charge of the government's finances, the Treasury Secretary, is called the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The word has been around for a long time. There were exchequers in medieval England, back when exchequer offices worked for kings.

Definitions of exchequer

1. noun

   the funds of a government or institution or individual
   synonyms: coffer, treasury

   types:

   public treasury, till, trough

   a treasury for government funds

   bursary

   the treasury of a public institution or religious order

   subtreasury

   a subordinate treasury or place of deposit

   fisc

   a state treasury or exchequer or a royal treasury; originally the public treasury of Rome or the emperor's private purse

   type of:

   cash in hand, finances, funds, monetary resource, pecuniary resource

   assets in the form of money