496: score Apr 17, 2016

Anyone familiar with the French grading-system or counting-system will know that French maths are not base-10 such as is the English custom, but base-20. It might seem then that the word 'score, such as in "four score and seven years ago" must be of French origin, mais non. The modern noun and verb go back to the Old English 'scoru' which denoted a ‘set of twenty,’ and is derived of the Old Norse word, 'skor' meaning ‘notch, or tally", usually of twenty.