# accountant

Pronunciation: say "uh-KOWN-tuhnt" /əˈkaʊn.tənt/

## Noun

1. A professional who organizes, maintains, and audits another party's records, which are usually but not always financial.
   - Simple: A person whose job is keeping and checking records, usually money records, for someone else.
   - _The firm's accountant audits each department's records at the end of every quarter._
   - _Many small businesses rely on an accountant to maintain their financial statements._
2. Someone who handles calculations and manages another person's financial affairs.
   - Simple: A person who counts and looks after someone else's money matters.
   - _He served as the estate's accountant, balancing every expense against its income._
   - _A trusted accountant managed the singer's earnings while she toured._
3. A person skilled in keeping or adjusting accounts; especially an officer in a public office who has charge of its accounts.
   - Simple: A skilled keeper of accounts, or an officer in charge of a public office's accounts.
   - _The treasury appointed a new accountant to oversee its official accounts._
   - _As the office's accountant, she reconciled discrepancies across all the public ledgers._
4. A person who must give an account of their actions; one who is answerable.
   - Simple: A person who must answer for something and explain what they have done.
   - _Before the council, the governor was the sole accountant for the funds entrusted to him._
   - _Every guardian remains the accountant for the welfare of those in their care._
5. A discreet term for a sex worker, especially one who prefers not to be publicly identified with the trade.
   - Simple: A secret word for a sex worker who does not want people to know their job.
   - _On every official form she listed herself as an accountant, keeping her real trade out of view._
   - _Among her regular clients she was known simply as an accountant._

## Adjective

6. Accountable to a person or authority; obliged to answer to them for one's actions or duties. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Having to answer to someone and explain what you have done.

## Origin

It came from Middle English, from Middle French "acuntant," and is equivalent to "account" plus the suffix "-ant." It was first recorded in the mid-15th century.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/accountant (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).