1. A complementary part of a bank cheque, official receipt, or the like, which registers the particulars of the principal part, and is retained by the person who gives out that part.
(It varies from a duplicate to a mere memorandum of the contents of the part given out.)
1706, 1708. [see CHEQUE 1].
1865. Tylor, Early Hist. Man., vii. 166. The tally survives still … in the counterfoil of the banker’s cheque.
1887. Times, 10 Oct., 3/3. To enter on the counterfoils of the licences the amount he received.
† 2. = COUNTERSTOCK. Obs.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Counter-foil or Counter-stock, that part of a Tally struck in the Exchequer, which is kept by the Officers of the Court; the other Part, call’d the Stock, being deliver’d to the Party that has paid or lent the Queen any Money upon such Account.
1708. J. Chamberlayne, St. Gt. Brit., I. II. xii. (1743), 121. In whose Office at Westminster are preserved all the Counterfoils of the tallies.
