Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TAL'LY, n. [Fr. tailler, Port. talhar, Sp. tallar, to cut. See Tail.]

1. A piece of wood on which notches or scores are cut, as the marks of number. In purchasing and selling, it is customary for traders to have two sticks, or one stick cleft into two parts, and to mark with a score or notch on each, the number or quantity of goods delivered; the seller keeping one stick, and the purchaser the other. Before the use of writing, this or something like it was the only method of keeping accounts, and tallies are received as evidence of courts of justice. In the English exchequer are tallies of loans, one part being kept in the exchequer, the other being given to the creditor in lieu of an obligation for money lent to government. Cyc.
2. One thing made to suit another. They were framed the tallies for each other. Dryden.