ledger
/ˈlɛd͡ʒɚ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.49 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A book for keeping notes; a record book, a register.
noun
A book or other scheme for keeping accounting records.
noun
A book or other scheme for keeping accounting records.
noun
A collection of accounting entries consisting of credits and debits.
noun
A board attached to a wall to provide support for attaching other structural elements (such as deck joists or roof rafters) to a building.
noun
Ellipsis of ledger bait (“fishing bait attached to a floating line fastened to the bank of a pond, stream, etc.”) or ledger line (“fishing line used with ledger bait for bottom fishing; ligger”).
Example Sentences
- "Our ledger has no entry for the human pain caused by war."
- "My eyes kept glancing nervously to a spot on the side table just beyond the ring of light, where the ledgers containing the old church minutes were stacked."
- "Ever grateful for his perfect recall, the policeman carefully transcribed Mr. Welch's tedious rant word for word in his ledger."
- "A large part of Jacob's job was to take the notes and drawings that were scribbled in their notebooks out in the field and copy them into great ledgers in Rufus Benbow's library."
- ""A ten-bob note secured me quarter of an hour alone with the attendance ledger in a backroom." Holmes said, with a touch of chagrin."
- "The firſt Leidger, or Leidger Nº A. being thus finiſh'd, it is requiſite to prepare for the erecting of thy Accounts anew in a Leidger Nº B. or thy ſecond Leidger, which thou ſhalt do thus."
Etymology
From Middle English liggere, ligger, leger (“large breviary; beam, plank; dweller, inhabitant”), from liggen, leggen, variants of līen (“to lie down; to bow, kneel, prostrate; to die; to be located (somewhere); to remain in place, stay”), from Old English liċġan (“to lie down; to be situated”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie down”). The word is cognate with Saterland Frisian Lägger (“floor board, joist, plank”), West Frisian lêger (“beam, plank”), Dutch legger (“daybook; layer”) (from leggen (“to lay”), liggen (“to lie down”)), and is related to English ledge, lie (“to be prostrate”). The verb is derived from the noun.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *legʰ-, liggere, liċġan, -, leċġan
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈlɛd͡ʒɚ/
- British English: /ˈlɛd͡ʒə/