cash

• enPR: kăsh, IPA^(key): /kæʃ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æʃ
• Homophone: cache

From late Middle French caisse (“money-box”), itself borrowed from Occitan caissa, from Latin capsa (“box”),^[1] ultimately from capiō (“take, seize”), from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂p- (“grasp”). Doublet of case, chase, and chasse. Compare Spanish caja (“box”).

cash (usually uncountable, plural cashes)

1. (uncountable) Money in the form of notes/bills and coins, as opposed to cheques/checks or electronic transactions.

   After you bounced those checks last time, they want to be paid in cash.

   • 1810 July 13, William Cobbett, “To the Reader”, in Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register, volume XVIII, number 1, London: Printed by T[homas] C[urson] Hansard, Peterborough Court, Fleet Street; and sold by Richard Bagshaw, Brydges Street, Covent-Garden, and John Budd, Pall-Mall, published 14 July 1810, →OCLC, columns 13–14:

     When a man bargains for the price of maintaining such or such principles, or of endeavouring to make out such or such a case, without believing in the soundness of the principles or the truth of the case; such a man, whether he touch the cash (or paper-money) before or after the performance of his work, and whether he work with his tongue or his pen, may, I think be fairly charged with seeking after "base lucre;" […]

2. (uncountable, finance) Liquid assets, money that can be traded quickly, as distinct from assets that are invested and cannot be easily exchanged.
   • 2013 July 6, “The rise of smart beta”, in The Economist‎, volume 408, number 8843, page 68:

     Cash offers a return of virtually zero in many developed countries […] .

3. (uncountable, informal) Money.
   • 2017, Erin Lowry, Broke Millennial‎, page 146:

     Paying yourself first also implies that you have some understanding of your cash flow, which means that, yes, you must set a budget.

4. (countable, Canada) Cash register, or the counter in a business where the cash register is located.

   Let me just bring these to the cash for you.

   • 2017 December 30, Josh Freed, “Just you wait — technology might be the end of the line”, in Montreal Gazette, page A4, column 2:

     Visit Apple’s jam-packed stores and you won’t see lines at the cash — because every sales clerk is also your cashier, using cellphone card-readers to zip you through.

5. (countable, gambling) An instance of winning a cash prize.
   • 2012, Jonathan Little, Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 2:

     In the WSOP, I have played around 150 tournaments with one final table, 11 cashes, and a -70 percent ROI.

6. (countable, archaic) A place where money is kept, or where it is deposited and paid out; a money box.
   • 1787 [1764], Adam Anderson, quoting William Temple, An Historical And Chronological Deduction Of The Origin Of Commerce, From the Earliest Accounts‎, volume 1, page 236:

     This bank […] is properly a general cash, where every man lodges his money,

   • 1852, Theresa Lewis, quoting a letter from John More to Ralph Winwood, Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries of Lord Chancellor Clarendon‎, volume 2, page 321:

     She was said to have amassed a great sum of money for ill use ; 20,000l. are known to be in her cash ;

• → Georgian: ქეში (keši)
• → Japanese: キャッシュ (kyasshu)
• → Korean: 캐시 (kaesi)
• → Punjabi: ਕੈਸ਼ (kaiś)
• → Russian: кэш (kɛš)
• → Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic script: ке̏ш

  Latin script: kȅš

• → Swedish: cash
• → Wu: 開許／开许 (¹khe-shiu)

• small, unmarked bills

cash (third-person singular simple present cashes, present participle cashing, simple past and past participle cashed)

1. (transitive) To exchange (a check/cheque) for money in the form of notes/bills.
   • 2006, Noire , Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 247:

     My single "Lick and Move" had made it to number four on the Top Ten charts, and I had gotten a nice check from Ruthless Rap. I cashed that shit and took Muddah shopping in Midtown and told her to get any damn thing she wanted.

2. (poker slang) To obtain a payout from a tournament.

cash (comparative more cash, superlative most cash)

1. (slang) Great; excellent; cool.

Variant of earlier cass under influence from cash above, from Tamil காசு (kācu), ultimately from Sanskrit karsha ("weight of 1/400 tulā, तुला"). Extended to other similar forms of low-denomination coins in Southeast and East Asia following the example of cognate Portuguese cas, casse, caxa, caixa.

cash (plural cashes or cash)

1. (historical) The low-denomination coin of southern India until 1818.
2. (historical) Any of several similar coins in Southeast and East Asia, particularly the imperial Chinese copper coin.
   • 1896, Alexander Armstrong, In a Mule Litter to the Tomb of Confucius, pages 2-3:

     Shentzŭ is the Chinese name for what we would call a mule litter. As this conveyance can go over almost any kind of road, I decided on it, and engaged two mules for the litter, and a donkey for the baggage: the three animals with the shentzŭ and a man cost 1300 cash per day when we travelled, and 700 cash per day when we rested from any cause.

• (Madras coin): half-dodee (5 cash), dodee (10 cash), pice (20 cash), fanam (80 cash), pagoda (3360 cash)
• (Travancore coin): chakram (16 cash), fanam (64 cash), rupee (448 cash)

• “cash, n².”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
• Henry Yule, A[rthur] C[oke] Burnell (1903) “CASH”, in William Crooke, editor, Hobson-Jobson , London: John Murray, , page 168.

See cashier.

cash (third-person singular simple present cashes, present participle cashing, simple past and past participle cashed)

1. To disband. To do away with, kill
   • 1564, Arthur Golding, Abridgment of the histories of Trogus Pompeius:

     He cashed the old souldiers, and supplied their roumes with yong beginners.

• chas, Chas., ACHs, HCAs, Chas, cahs, CAHs, achs

• cashu

From Latin cāseus. Compare Romanian caș.

• IPA^(key): /kaʃ/

cash n (plural cãshuri)

1. cheese

• brãndzã

• cãshirlichi
• cãshat

• cãshar
• cãshari

• cãshcãval

Borrowed from English cash. Doublet of kas.

• IPA^(key): /kɛʃ/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: cash

cash m (uncountable)

1. (informal) cash

cash (invariable, not comparable)

1. (informal, of money) in coins and bills/notes
   • Heb je cash geld? — Do you have cash?

• baar

Borrowed from English cash. Doublet of caisse.

• IPA^(key): /kaʃ/

• Audio:

  (file)

cash

1. (colloquial) in cash (of paying)
2. (colloquial) bluntly, directly, straight up

• “cash”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

• chas

Unadapted borrowing from English cash.

cash n (uncountable)

1. cash

cash m (uncountable)

1. cash

Borrowed from English cash. Attested since 1887.

cash c

1. (colloquial) cash (money)

   Synonyms: kontanter, stålar, pengar

Slangier in the definite.

cash (not comparable)

1. (colloquial) in cash

   Synonym: kontant

   Jag betalar cash

   I pay in cash

• cash in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• cash in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)