Spelling and Etymology
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The spellings check, checque, and cheque were used interchangeably from the 17th century until the 20th century. However, since the 19th century, the spelling cheque (from the French word chèque) has become standard for the financial instrument in the Commonwealth and Ireland, while check is used only for other meanings, thus distinguishing the two definitions in writing.
In American English, the usual spelling for both is check.
There have been suggestions that the word chek comes from ancient Pahlavi language which was used in the Achaemenid Empire in Persia. It may have spread from there to Arabic where saqq means a promise to pay a certain amount of money for delivered goods.
Read more about this topic: Cheque
Famous quotes containing the words spelling and/or etymology:
“Some let me make you of the heartless words.
The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry
Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.
By the sea’s side hear the dark-vowelled birds.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of “style.” But while style—deriving from the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets—suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.”
—Stephen Bayley, British historian, art critic. “Taste: The Story of an Idea,” Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things, Random House (1991)