Plural of checkbook; booklets containing blank checks issued by a bank for withdrawing money from a checking account.
Compound of 'check' (a written order for payment) and 'book' (a bound collection of pages). The term emerged in the 19th century as checking accounts became common in banking.
Checkbooks were once as essential as phones are today—teenagers in the 1980s learned money management partly through balancing these books, a skill that's nearly extinct now.
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