Written orders to a bank to pay money from an account to a specific person (British spelling of 'checks').
From Persian 'check' meaning 'a king' (in the game of chess), later 'a stop or control.' It evolved to mean a mark that stops or verifies, then a written order that halts money movement from an account.
Cheques are essentially becoming obsolete—they went from revolutionary financial technology in the 1600s to nearly extinct in just a few decades, replaced by digital transfers that are instant instead of taking days.
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