vexel

English

Etymology 1

Noun

vexel (plural vexels)

1. Alternative form of veksel
   • 1877, Great Britain. Foreign Office, Commercial Reports Received at the Foreign Office from Her Majesty's Consuls, page 846:

     [Discussing assets of the Russian bank of Kertch.] […] vexels remained in hand […] 2,990 vexels or bills of exchange discounted for 1,412,025 […]

   • 1999 January 1, Non-payment in the Electricity Sector in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, World Bank Publications, →ISBN, page 31:

     Promissory notes (or "vexels" as they are called in Russia and Ukraine) are securities which entitle the owner the right to claim certain property of the debtor (issuer). Under conditions of tight money supply and high interest rates, vexels came into vogue […]

Etymology 2

Coined in the early 1900s by a trustee of Cornell University, from Latin vexō (“shake”) and German wechseln (“change”).

Noun

vexel (plural vexels)

1. (obsolete, rare, US) A troublemaker, a person who wants to change things.
   • 1915, Robert T. Morris, Educational Review ..., page 460:

     […] highly sensitized individuals of neurotic tendencies who manifest in their state of unrest a morbid desire to change everything. […] Let us [...] classify such people by combining a Latin and German root and calling the individuals "vexels" (Latin vexare, to shake : German wexeln, to change). Vexels appear in practically every large group of people who are organized for any purpose whatsoever, and they must be reckoned with as a definite psychologic factor […]

   • 1917, Nicholas Murray Butler, Frank Pierrepont Graves, William McAndrew, Educational Review, page 419:

     […] in which what a Trustee of Cornell once called "vexels" or mischief-makers can break the continuity of an institution and set back for years its best interests. The very fact that "vexels" know that some excellent men in responsible positions sometimes advise that at any cost […]