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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

account.

A registry of pecuniary transactions; a written or printed statement of business dealings or debts and credits, and also of other things subjected to a reckoning or review.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/əˈkaʊnt/US
  1. A registry of pecuniary transactions; a written or printed statement of business dealings or debts and credits, and also of other things subjected to a reckoning or review.

    The firm failed to file its accounts on time.
  2. A bank account.

    The money was refunded to her account.
  3. A statement in general of reasons, causes, grounds, etc., explanatory of some event; a reason of an action to be done.

    No satisfactory account has been given of these phenomena.
  4. A reason, grounds, consideration, motive; a person's sake.

    Don't trouble yourself on my account.
    on no account
  5. A record of events; a relation or narrative.

    An account of a battle.
  6. An estimate or estimation; valuation; judgment.

  7. Importance; worth; value; esteem; judgement.

  8. Authorization as a specific registered user in accessing a system.

    Since the system outage, I've been unable to log in to my account.
  9. A reckoning; computation; calculation; enumeration; a record of some reckoning.

    archaic
  10. Profit; advantage.

    uncountable
    The young man soon turned his woodworking skills to some account.
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Old French a- Proto-Indo-European *ḱe? Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm Proto-Italic *kom Proto-Italic *kom- Latin con- Latin putus Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin putō Latin computō Old French conter Old French aconter Anglo-Norman acuntebor. Middle English acounte English account From Middle English acounte, from Anglo-Norman acunte (“account”), from Old French aconte, from aconter (“to reckon”), from Latin computō (“to sum up”).

verb/əˈkaʊnt/US
  1. To provide explanation. To present an account of; to answer for, to justify.

    obsolete · transitive
  2. To provide explanation. To give an account of financial transactions, money received etc.

    archaic · intransitive
  3. To provide explanation. To estimate, consider (something to be as described).

    transitive
    I'd account it a privilege to serve you.
  4. To provide explanation. To consider that.

    intransitive
  5. To provide explanation. To give a satisfactory evaluation for financial transactions, money received etc.

    intransitive
    An officer must account with or to the treasurer for money received.
  6. To provide explanation. To give a satisfactory evaluation for (one's actions, behaviour etc.); to answer for.

    intransitive
    We must account for the use of our opportunities.
  7. To provide explanation. To give a satisfactory reason for; to explain.

    intransitive
    Idleness accounts for poverty.
  8. To provide explanation. To establish the location for someone.

    intransitive
    After the crash, not all passengers were accounted for.
  9. To provide explanation. To cause the death, capture, or destruction of someone or something (+ for).

    intransitive
  10. To count. To calculate, work out (especially with periods of time).

    archaic · transitive
  11. To count. To count (up), enumerate.

    obsolete
  12. To count. To recount, relate (a narrative etc.).

    obsolete
  13. Used in phrasal verbs: account for, account of, account to.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Old French a- Proto-Indo-European *ḱe? Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm Proto-Italic *kom Proto-Italic *kom- Latin con- Latin putus Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Indo-European *-h₂tiinflu. Proto-Italic *-ājō Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin putō Latin computō Old French conter Old French aconterder. English account From Old French acounter, accomptere et al., from a- + conter (“to count”)). Compare count.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.