treasury

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A place in which treasure is kept.
2. n. A place in which private or public funds are received, kept, managed, and disbursed.
3. n. Such funds or revenues.
4. n. A collection of literary or artistic treasures: a treasury of English verse.
5. n. The department of a government in charge of the collection, management, and expenditure of the public revenue.
6. n. A security, such as a note, issued by the U.S. Treasury.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A house, room, or chest where treasure is laid up.
2. n. Figuratively, that wherein something precious is stored or secured; a repository.
3. n. Specifically, a place where the public revenues are deposited and kept, and where money is disbursed to defray the expenses of government; also, a place where the funds of an incorporated company or private society are deposited and disbursed.
4. n. A department of government which has control over the collection, management, and expenditure of the public revenue. See Department of the Treasury, under department. The duties of this department of the British government are now performed by a board of five lords commissioners instead of a lord high treasurer, as formerly. The chief of these commissioners, or first lord of the treasury, is usually prime miuister, and may be a member of either house of Parliament. The virtual head of the treasury is the chancellor of the exchequer. (See chancellor, 3 .) The duties of the three remaining members of the board, the junior lords, are merely formal, the heaviest part of the executive functions devolving on the two joint secretaries of the department (the patronage secretary and the financial secretary), who are also members of the lower house, and on a permanent secretary. The custody of the public revenue is vested in the exchequer, but the function of payment belongs to the treasury, consequently all sums withdrawn from the exchequer must be vouched for by a treasury warrant. The treasury has the appointment of all officers engaged in the collection of the public revenue; the army, navy, and civil-service supplies are issued under its authority; and all exceptional cases and disputes relating to the public revenue are referred to its decision. Several important state departments are under the general authority or regulation of the treasury.
5. n. The officers of the British treasury department.
6. n. A name given to a class of subterranean monuments consisting usually of a solid structure of masonry, of domical form, often with pseudo-vaulting in horizontal courses, either wholly underground or covered with a tumulus. Familiar examples are the structures of this type at Mycenæ and at Orchomenus, in Greece. The name is erroneous, as these structures are now recognized as tombs.
7. n. Treasure.

Wiktionary

1. n. a place where treasure is stored safely
2. n. a place where state or royal money and valuables are stored
3. n. a collection or artistic or literary works

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A place or building in which stores of wealth are deposited; especially, a place where public revenues are deposited and kept, and where money is disbursed to defray the expenses of government; hence, also, the place of deposit and disbursement of any collected funds.
2. n. That department of a government which has charge of the finances.
3. n. A repository of abundance; a storehouse.
4. n. Hence, a book or work containing much valuable knowledge, wisdom, wit, or the like; a thesaurus.”
5. n. obsolete A treasure.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. negotiable debt obligations of the United States government which guarantees that interest and principal payments will be paid on time
2. n. the funds of a government or institution or individual
3. n. the government department responsible for collecting and managing and spending public revenues
4. n. the British cabinet minister responsible for economic strategy
5. n. a depository (a room or building) where wealth and precious objects can be kept safely
6. n. the federal department that collects revenue and administers federal finances; the Treasury Department was created in 1789