tally

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A reckoning or score.
2. n. A stick on which notches are made to keep a count or score.
3. n. A stick on which notches were formerly made to keep a record of amounts paid or owed.
4. n. A mark used in recording a number of acts or objects, most often in series of five, consisting of four vertical lines canceled diagonally or horizontally by a fifth line.
5. n. A label, ticket, or piece of metal or wood used for identification or classification, especially in gardens and greenhouses.
6. n. Something that is very similar or corresponds to something else; a double or counterpart.
7. n. Nautical A metal plate attached to a ship's machinery and bearing instructions for its use.
8. v. To reckon or count.
9. v. To record by making a mark.
10. v. Sports & Games To score (a point or goal) in a game or contest.
11. v. To label, as with a ticket, for identification or classification.
12. v. To cause to correspond or agree.
13. v. To be alike; correspond or agree: The report tallies with your description of the accident.
14. v. To keep score.
15. v. Sports & Games To score a point or goal in a game or contest.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An Italian: as, the Tallies are working on the railroad. Dialect Notes, II. vi.
2. n. A piece of wood on which notches or scores are cut to mark numbers, as in keeping an account or giving a receipt; loosely, anything on which a score or an account is kept. Before the use of writing, or before writing became general, this or something like it was the usual method of keeping accounts. In purchasing and selling it was customary to make duplicate tallies of the transaction, or to split one tally through the middle. In the English Exchequer tallies were used till 1812, which answered the purpose of receipts as well as simple records of matters of account. An Exchequer tally was an account of a sum of money lent to the government, or of a sum for which the government would be responsible. The tally itself consisted of a squared rod of hazel or other wood, having on one side notches indicating the sum for which the tally was an acknowledgment. On two other sides, opposite to each other, the amount of the sum, the name of the payer, and the date of the transaction were written by an officer called the writer of the tallies. This being done, the rod was then cleft longitudinally in such a manner that each piece retained one of the written sides, and one half of every notch cut in the tally. One of these parts, the counterfoil or counterstock, was kept in the Exchequer, and only the other, the stock, issued. When the part issued was returned to the Exchequer (usually in payment of taxes) the two parts were compared, as a check against fraudulent imitation. This was called tally or tallies. The size of the notches made on the tallies varied with the amount. The notch for £100 was the breadth of a thumb; for £1 the breadth of a barleycorn. A penny was indicated by a slight slit.
3. n. A score kept upon a notched stick or by other means; a reckoning; an account; a record as of debit and credit or of the score in a game.
4. n. A mark made to register a certain number of objects; one of a series of consecutive marks by which a number of objects are recorded or checked; also, a number as thus recorded; a number serving as a unit of computation. Thus, when packages of goods of uniform size and character are being delivered and an account of them taken, every fifth mark usually is called tally, and in counting aloud the word tally is used instead of five, after which the enumeration begins again; this is marked on a clerk's book, tally being the diagonal mark; though sometimes each mark is a tally, and the fifth or diagonal one is a tally of tallies.
5. n. A ticket or label of wood, metal, or the like used as a means of identification; specifically, in horticulture, such a ticket bearing either a number referring to a catalogue, or the name of the plant with which it is connected.
6. n. By extension, anything corresponding to another as duplicate or counterpart.
7. n. An abbreviation of tally-shop.
8. To mark or record on a tally; score; register.
9. To reckon; count; sum: with up.
10. To score with corresponding notches; hence, to cause to conform; suit; adapt; match.
11. To parallel; do or return in kind.
12. Nautical, to put aft, as the sheets or lower corners of the mainsail and foresail.
13. To correspond, as one part of a tally to the other; conform; agree.
14. In basset, faro, etc., to act as banker.
15. n. Same as tally-ho.
16. Same as tally-ho.
17. In a tall manner. Properly; fittingly; becomingly; finely.
18. Stoutly; boldly.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Used as a mild intensifier: very (almost exclusively used by the upper classes and often in conjuction with bally).
2. n. Originally, a piece of wood on which notches or scores were cut, as the marks of number;
3. n. Later, one of two books, sheets of paper, etc, on which corresponding accounts were kept.
4. n. Hence, any account or score kept by notches or marks, whether on wood or paper, or in a book, especially one kept in duplicate.
5. n. One thing made to suit another; a match; a mate.
6. n. A notch, mark, or score made on or in a tally; as, to make or earn a score or tally in a game.
7. n. A tally shop.
8. v. To count something
9. v. To record something by making marks
10. v. To make things correspond or agree with each other
11. v. To keep score
12. v. To correspond or agree

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Originally, a piece of wood on which notches or scores were cut, as the marks of number; later, one of two books, sheets of paper, etc., on which corresponding accounts were kept.
2. n. Hence, any account or score kept by notches or marks, whether on wood or paper, or in a book; especially, one kept in duplicate.
3. n. One thing made to suit another; a match; a mate.
4. n. A notch, mark, or score made on or in a tally.
5. n. A tally shop. See Tally shop, below.
6. v. To score with correspondent notches; hence, to make to correspond; to cause to fit or suit.
7. v. To check off, as parcels of freight going inboard or outboard.
8. v. To be fitted; to suit; to correspond; to match.
9. v. To make a tally; to score.
10. adv. Stoutly; with spirit.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a score in baseball made by a runner touching all four bases safely
2. v. gain points in a game
3. v. be compatible, similar or consistent; coincide in their characteristics
4. v. keep score, as in games
5. v. determine the sum of
6. n. a bill for an amount due
7. n. the act of counting; reciting numbers in ascending order