Banking. [Cheque is a differentiated spelling of check, which is also in use, especially in U.S. In meaning it belongs to CHECK sb.1 sense 13. Cf. also CHECK v.1 sense 16. From being the name of the counterfoil of an Exchequer or other bill, the purpose of which was to check forgery or alteration, the name appears to have been applied to any bill, note, or draft, having a counterfoil, and thus to its present sense, where a counterfoil (though usual) is not even necessary.]
† 1. The counterfoil of a bank bill, draft, etc. Obs.
1706. Act 5 Anne c. 13 [Enacts that Exchequer Bills be made henceforth with two counterfoils instead of one, and] That the said Governor and Company [of Bk. of Eng.] shall … have the use and custody of the one part of all and euery the Checques, Indents, or Counterfoyls of all such Exchequer Bills … and from which the same Exchequer Bills shall be cut.
1708. Act 7 Anne c. 7. Such part of the said Cheques, Indents, or Counterfoils as shall relate to the Bills so discharged or cancelled … shall be delivered back into the Receipt of Her Majesties Exchequer by the said Governor and Company. [Cf. Mr. A. W. Chisholm’s Return to Ho. of Commons, ordered 11 May 1857, on National Debt.]
1755. Johnson, Check, the correspondent cipher of a bank bill.
1774–82. Barclay, Dict., Check … a counter-cypher of a bank bill; an account kept privately to examine that which is kept with a banker, or public office.
Hence Checque-note, a ‘note’ having a counterfoil.
1721. Minutes of Court of Bank of England, 4 Jan. The affidavit of John Jocelyn of … relating to a checque note for a Dividend Warrant on Bank Stock pawned.
2. A draft form having a counterfoil. Obs.
1717. Minutes of Court of Bank of Eng., 24 Oct., Ordered … that Mr. Woolhead desire all persons who keep accounts by Drawn Notes to use cheques, who do not at present. Ibid. (1765), 19 Dec., Ordered that no cheques be delivered but to Persons keeping Cash with the Bank, or to their order in writing, or to their known servant, bringing with him the Bank Book; and that the servant be desired to write his Master’s name and his own in a leaf of the Cheque Book, against the number of cheques delivered him, and that the Bank Officer do write the number of the said cheques with the day when delivered signed with his own name in a spare leafe of their Bank Books…. That the name and place of abode of every person demanding payment of Bank Draughts be wrote on the Back thereof before the Draughts be paid.
1832. in Lawson, Hist. Banking (1850), 186. Cheques are given out in books, and not in sheets as heretofore.
This was apparently the sense in which Tucker used checked paper (which could not mean chequered or patterned paper, as none such was ever used by the Bank of Eng.):
1765. Tucker, Lt. Nat., I. Gen. Good. If I have an account with the Bank of England, and … should I chance on some distant journey to be reduced low in pocket, if I have no checked paper along with me, I cannot draw for a single sixpence.
3. A written order (on a printed form or otherwise) to a banker by a person having money in the banker’s hands, directing him to pay, on presentation, to bearer or to a person named the sum of money stated therein (called in Bank of England books 1717 a Drawn Note.) Blank cheque: (usually) a cheque signed by the drawer, but with the amount left blank to be filled up by the person to whom it is given.
Quot. 1774 may possibly belong to 1, or 2.
1774. Foote, Cozeners, III. i. A draft! A draft on his banker, I reckon … Let me see. What is the tote? A hundred and ninety two pounds, six and—Oh! here he is, I suppose with the check.
1803. Ann. Rev., I. 384/1. The clerks of government might pay to the several stock-holders their interest money in checques, as they are called, or drafts to bearer on some banker.
1818. Todd, ‘Check, the corresponding cipher of a bank bill’ [J.] This word is often corruptly used for the draft itself of the person on his banker.
1823. Galt, Entail, III. xxii. 210. Milrookit gave a cheque for two hundred pounds, and retired grumbling.
1832. Babbage, Econ. Manuf., xiv. (ed. 3), 126. All payments are made, through written orders called checks.
1845. McCulloch, Taxation, II. vi. (1852), 295. It has also been proposed to subject all checks drawn on bankers to a uniform stamp-duty of 1d. or 2d.
1858. Dickens, Lett. (1880), II. 46. I have safely received your cheque this morning.
1880. Standard, 11 Dec., 6/1. The Paris ‘cheque’ [i.e., bill of exchange on demand] is maintained at 25.321/2.
1886. W. A. Croffut, Vanderbilts, xiii. 119. ‘Ten thousand dollars,’ was the reply.
He drew his check for it and handed it to her, advising her to make it go as far as she could.
b. fig. in various uses. To give a blank cheque to: nearly = to give carte blanche to.
a. 1849. H. Coleridge, Poems, II. 376. Sense is only fraught With cheques and tokens taken upon trust.
1881. Boyd Dawkins, in Nature, XXIII. 309. He is drawing a cheque on our credulity which is not likely to be honoured.
1884. G. J. Goschen, in Parlt., 19 Feb. (Hansard, Ser. III. CCLXXXIV. 1420). I have the courage of my opinions, but I have not the temerity to give a political blank cheque to Lord Salisbury.
4. attrib. and Comb., as cheque-book, formerly, a book in which the Bank kept a register of ‘cheques,’ i.e., draft forms, issued to its customers (see quot. 1765 in 2); now, a book containing engraved cheque forms with their counterfoils, supplied by a bank to its customers.
1848. Thackeray, Van. Fair, xiii. I’ve shown my gratitude to Sedley … as my cheque-book can show.
1853. Reade, Chr. Johnstone, 26. His Lordship began to feel for a checque-book.
1879. Print. Trades Jrnl., XXVIII. 16. A new method for the prevention of cheque frauds.
1882. T. Mozley, Remin., Ser. I. I. xxi. Some people leave everything about their cheque-books wide open; their tradesmen’s urgent reminders.
