Tally

n. [Fr. taille, a cutting, cut, tally, from tailler, to cut; Pr. & Pg. talha, Sp. taja, It. taglia. See DETAIL.] 1. A piece of wood on which notches or scores are cut, as the marks of number.

In purchasing and selling, it was once customary for traders to have two sticks, or one stick cleft into two parts, and to mark with a score or notch, on each, the number or quantity of goods delivered, — the seller keeping one stick, and the purchaser the other. Before the use of writing, this, or something like it, was the only method of keeping accounts; and tallies are received as evidence in courts of justice. In the English exchequer are tallies of loans, one part being kept in the exchequer, the other being given to the creditor in lieu of an obligation for money lent to government.

2Sense 2. One thing made to suit another; a match; a mate.

They were framed the tallies for each other. Dryden.

3Sense 3. The same as TALLY-SHOP, q. v.

To strike tallies, to act in correspondence, or alike. [Obs. or rare.] Fuller.