account

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A narrative or record of events.
• noun A reason given for a particular action or event.
• noun A report relating to one's conduct.
• noun A basis or ground.
• noun A formal banking, brokerage, or business relationship established to provide for regular services, dealings, and other financial transactions.
• noun A precise list or enumeration of financial transactions.
• noun A sum of money deposited for checking, savings, or brokerage use.
• noun A customer having a business or credit relationship with a firm.
• noun A private access to a computer system or online service, usually requiring a password to enter.
• noun Worth, standing, or importance.
• noun Profit or advantage.
• transitive verb To consider as being; deem. synonym: consider.
• idiom (call to account) To challenge or contest.
• idiom (call to account) To hold answerable for.
• idiom (on account) On credit.
• idiom (on account of) Because of; for the sake of.
• idiom (on no account) Under no circumstances.
• idiom (on (one's) own account) For oneself.
• idiom (on (one's) own account) On one's own; by oneself.
• idiom (on (someone's) account) For someone's benefit.
• idiom (take into account) To take into consideration; allow for.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To count or reckon as; deem; consider; think; hold to be.
• To reckon or compute; count.
• To assign or impute; give the credit of; reckon as belonging or attributable.
• To give an account, reason, or explanation of; explain.
• To take into consideration.
• To recount; relate.
• To render an account or relation of particulars; answer in a responsible character: followed by with or to before a person, and by for before a thing: as, an officer must account with or to the treasurer for money received.
• To furnish or assign a reason or reasons; give an explanation: with for: as, idleness accounts for poverty.
• To reckon; count.
• noun A reckoning, an enumeration, or a computation; method of computing: as, the Julian account of time.
• noun A reckoning of money or business; a statement or record of financial or pecuniary transactions, with their debits and credits, or of money received and paid and the balance on hand or due: as, to keep accounts; to make out an account.
• noun A course of business dealings or relations requiring the keeping of records: as, to have an account with the bank.
• noun On the stock exchange, that part of the transactions between buyer and seller to be settled on the fortnightly or monthly settling-day: as, I have sold A. B. 500 shares for the account.
• noun Narrative; relation; statement of facts; a recital, verbal or written, of particular transactions and events: as, an account of the revolution in France.
• noun A statement of reasons, causes, grounds, etc., explanatory of some event: as, no satisfactory account has yet been given of these phenomena.
• noun An explanatory statement or vindication of one's conduct, such as is given to a superior.
• noun Reason or consideration; ground: used with on: as, on all accounts; on every account; on account of.
• noun Estimation; esteem; distinction; dignity; consequence or importance.
• noun Profit; advantage: as, to find one's account in a pursuit; to turn anything to account.
• noun Regard; behalf; sake: as, all this trouble I have incurred on your account.
• noun Sometimes spelled accompt.
• Accounted; reckoned.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• intransitive verb To render or receive an account or relation of particulars.
• intransitive verb To render an account; to answer in judgment; -- with for.
• intransitive verb To give a satisfactory reason; to tell the cause of; to explain; -- with for.