Ledger - Origin of The Term Ledger

Origin of The Term Ledger

Originally, a ledger was a large volume of scripture/service book kept in one place in church and accessible. According to Charles Wriothesley's Chronicle (1538):

The curates should provide a booke of the bible in Englishe, of the largest volume, to be a ledger in the same church for the parishioners to read on.

It is an application of this original meaning that is found in the commercial usage of the term for the principal book of account in a business house.

Read more about this topic:  Ledger

Famous quotes containing the words origin of the, origin of, origin, term and/or ledger:

    The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.
    Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)

    In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

    No—is a term very frequently employed by the fair, when they mean everything else but a negative. Their yes is always yes; but their no is not always no.
    Anonymous, U.S. women’s magazine contributor. M, Weekly Visitor or Ladies Miscellany, p. 203 (April 1803)

    Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to immobility. In life’s ledger there is no such thing as frozen assets.
    Henry Miller (1891–1980)