finance
Definitions
General English
- noun money, especially money which belongs to the public or to a company
Accounting
- noun money used by a company, provided by the shareholders or by loans
- noun money (used by a club, local authority, etc.)
- verb to provide money to pay for something
Economics
- noun money available for investment, as a loan or for a similar use
Information & Library Science
- noun money needed to pay for a project
Politics
- noun public money used by a government or local authority
Travel
- noun the work of managing the money used by a business or organisation
Origin & History of “finance”
Finance comes ultimately from Latin fīnis ‘end’, and its present-day monetary connotations derive from the notion of ‘finally settling a debt by payment’. Its immediate source is Old French finance, a derivative of the verb finer ‘end, settle’, which when it was originally acquired by English still meant literally ‘end’: ‘God, that all things did make of nought … puttest each creature to his finance’, Coventry mystery Plays 1400. The debt-settling sense had already developed by that time, but this did not broaden out into the current ‘management of monetary resources’ until the 18th century.
