chit小额欠账字据

【使用地区】：美国，英国

【释义】：

A British and American term for a voucher of money owed for food or drink，though the British also use it to mean any I．O．U．The word derives from the Hindustani citthi，“a short note．”In British colonial India，Hindu civil servants seem to have been in the habit of writing an inordinate amount of citthis about every conceivable matter．The British found this practice time—consuming and inefficient，criticizing it so often that the word citthi eventually became the easier—to—pronounce chitty and then chit in their vocabulary．They used chit for the notes they signed for drinks and food at their clubs．The chit that means a young，often insignificantperson or a child goes back much farther in time(“a chit of a girl”)．Found in the works of John Wycliffe，it refers to the young of an animal and probably derives from kitten or kit．

在英国和美国，此词均用来指“食物或饮料的欠款凭据”，英国人也用来指任何“借据”。该词源于兴都斯坦语citthi，意为“便条”。在英国殖民统治时期的印度，兴都斯坦的文职人员似乎对每一件可以想得到的事都习惯于写数额不等的便条。英国人发现这种做法太费时，效率又低，对此经常指责，最终citthi一词变成了易于发音的chitty，后来又变为chit。他们用chit来指在俱乐部消费的饮料和食物所签的条子。该词作“年轻人(通常为小人物)”或“小孩”的用法可追溯至更早的时期，(如“黄毛丫头”)。在John Wycliffe的作品中，该词意为“幼小的动物”，此用法也许源于kitten或kit。