casting up one's accounts

Verb

cast up one's accounts (third-person singular simple present casts up one's accounts, present participle casting up one's accounts, simple past and past participle cast up one's accounts)

1. To come to an accounting; to examine and strike the balance of debt and credit; reckon.
   • He was very careful to cast up his accounts every quarter ; which he did, that he might spend neither more nor less than what he could spend every year.2005, Benedictus de Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise, and a Political Treatise, →ISBN, page xviii
2. (archaic, idiomatic) To vomit.
   • To cast up one's accounts upon excessive drinking ; either, says Cotgrave, because in spewing one makes a noise like a fox that barks, or (from the subject to the effect) because the flaying of so unsavoury a beast will make any one spew.1854, François Rabelais, Jacob Le Duchat, John Ozell, The Works of Francis Rabelais - Volume 1, page 134