mérlege

Mérlege is the Hungarian word for balance, with two main senses. The first is a measuring instrument: a balance scale used to determine the mass of objects. Historically, balances featured a beam with two pans and calibrated weights; today many scales are digital but conceptually the same. They are used in commerce, laboratories, pharmacies, and jewelry trades to weigh quantities with precision.

The second sense appears in financial and accounting language. The related word mérleg denotes a balance sheet—the formal statement of a company’s assets, liabilities, and equity at a given date. While the instrument sense belongs to measurement, the accounting sense concerns financial position and regulatory reporting. In Hungarian, mérlege can appear as a grammatical form of mérleg in phrases such as a cég mérlege meaning the company’s balance sheet or its balance. However, the standard term for the financial statement is usually mérleg.

Beyond these senses, the concept of balance appears in everyday language as well, referring to equilibrium in physical, chemical, or metaphorical contexts. Overall, mérlege ties together ideas of measurement, accounting, and balance across different domains.