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 or bills and coins, as opposed to checks, credit 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^[1], 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^[2], 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^[3], 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^[4], 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 ;

• → Armenian: քեշ (kʻeš)
• → 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 [pseudonym], 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, to 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, figurative) bluntly, directly, straight up
   • 2025 June 9, Marguerite Dégez, quoting Dadinho, “Cinq ans de prison pour le rappeur Dadinho”, in La Provence, →ISSN, Grand Sud:

     “ […] J'y suis allé pour séparer, j'avais un ami qui y travaillait… Je vais pour parler, je reçois un coup, je mets un coup. J'ai cash répondu”, s'est-il remémoré.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• “cash”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• chas

Unadapted borrowing from English cash.

cash n (uncountable)

1. cash

• IPA^(key): /ˈkaʃ/ [ˈkaʃ]
  • Rhymes: -aʃ
• IPA^(key): (chiefly Spain) /ˈkas/ [ˈkas]
  • Rhymes: -as
• Syllabification: cash

cash m (uncountable)

1. cash

• “cash”, in Diccionario de americanismos [Dictionary of Americanisms] (in Spanish), Association of Academies of the Spanish Language [Spanish: Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española], 2010

Borrowed from English cash. Attested since 1887.

cash c

1. (colloquial) cash (money)

   Synonyms: kontanter, stålar, pengar

   • 2025 February 8, Mark Brotherhood, 09:02 from the start, in Charlotte Rieback, transl., Ludwig – pusseldetektiven‎^[5], season 1, episode 3 (subtitles; overall work in English), spoken by DS Alice Finch (Izuka Hoyle):

     Halshaw junior åker in och ut på rehab, krockar sportbilar och grips ofta med väskor med cash han inte kan redogöra för.

     Halshaw junior is in and out of rehab, smashes up sports cars and is often arrested with bags of cash he can't account for.

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)