Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who keeps a tally or count of something.
  • noun Chiefly British One who goes from door to door selling goods on an installment plan and collecting payments.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who keeps a tally or score.
  • noun One who keeps a tally-shop, selling goods on short credit, the accounts of which are kept by a system of tallies, without regular book-accounts.
  • noun One who sells by sample goods to be delivered afterward, or who takes orders for such goods.
  • noun A man who lives with a woman without marriage. See to live tally, under tally, n.
  • noun In forestry, a man who records or tallies the measurements of logs as they are called by the scaler.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who keeps the tally, or marks the sticks.
  • noun One who keeps a tally shop, or conducts his business as tally trade.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who keeps a tally of something
  • noun A person who conducts the tally trade

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun one who sells goods on the installment plan
  • noun one who keeps a tally of quantity or weight of goods produced or shipped or received

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Which is more than can be said for some of these sharpers that go by the name of tallyman.

    At Swim, Two Boys Jamie O’Neill 2002

  • Which is more than can be said for some of these sharpers that go by the name of tallyman.

    At Swim, Two Boys Jamie O’Neill 2002

  • I'm a tenacious tallyman with the heart of a solid gold compass.

    Yard Sailing michael dickes 2011

  • I'm a tenacious tallyman with the heart of a solid gold compass.

    Yard Sailing michael dickes 2011

  • She emptied the basket on the dump and handed the tallyman a wooden marker: Lizzie guessed the markers were used to calculate the wages at the end of the week.

    A Place Called Freedom Follett, Ken 1995

  • Depending on the size of the site, this tally will be kept by a tallyman, foreman or works supervisor himself.

    1.1. Survey of local conditions and site reconnaissance 1982

  • A manual earth-moving site comprises: a site supervisor, four men or gang leaders, labourers, water carriers where necessary, a topography team, a tallyman and a watchman for the equipment.

    1.1. Survey of local conditions and site reconnaissance 1982

  • The skipper took his eye off the tallyman counting in fish.

    Poor Man's Rock Bertrand W. Sinclair 1926

  • Some of them had to pay a shilling a week to a tallyman or credit clothier.

    The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Robert Tressell 1890

  • She had made several purchases of gewgaws, and had already paid three or four times their value, but was still in debt to the tallyman, who threatened all manner of impossible proceedings if she did not make up her arrears.

    In the Year of Jubilee George Gissing 1880

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