reckonmaster

English

Alternative forms

• reckon-master
• reckenmaster (obsolete)
• reckmaster

Etymology

From reckon +‎ master. Compare West Frisian reckenmaster, rekkenmaster (“accountant”), Dutch rekenmeester (“accountant”), German Rechenmeister (“reckoner; arithmetician”).

Noun

reckonmaster (plural reckonmasters)

1. (rare, now historical) A mathematician or arithmetician.
   • 1570, John Dee, in H. Billingsley (trans.) Euclid, Elements of Geometry, Preface:

     For the common Logist, Reckenmaster, or Arithmeticien, in hys vsing of Numbers: of an Vnit, imagineth lesse partes: and calleth them Fractions.

   • 1960, Journal of the History of Ideas, volume 21:

     The reckonmasters now had the opportunity to consolidate these favorable associations. Despite their novelty, the arithmetics just described could not fill all the needs of wholesale merchants, bankers, and others with extensive commercial activity.

   • 1981, Harvey J. Graff, Literacy and Social Development in the West:

     The old choirboy schools still performed their service for the sons of some artisans and petty traders, and more important, the numbers of vernacular schoolteachers and reckonmasters multiplied.