cache

Etymology

It is borrowed from French cache (“hiding place”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} a noun formed from cacher (“to hide”),^[2][4][7][8] which is recorded from the 13th century.^[8] Etymonline and Barnhart trace the English use to the French of Canada, where trappers called a hidden store of provisions a cache from the 1660s.^[8][9] The French verb comes from Vulgar Latin *coācticō (“to press together, store up”),^{[10][3][8][7][11]} a frequentative of Latin coāctō (“to constrain, compel”), itself from cōgō (“to drive together, compel”), formed from com- (“together”) and agō (“to drive”).^[8][7][3] Partridge explains the change of sense: pressing something into a small space makes it less noticeable, and so hides it.^[12] The word is related to cogent and cachet.^[7][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A hole or mound made by pioneers and Arctic explorers to hide stores of provisions or ammunition: 1797, in the journal of Charles Chaboillez.^[2] Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster also date the noun to 1797, as an American word.^[9][8][3] Weekley calls it a 19th-century word from French-Canadian trappers that Drake had used once,^[13] and Dictionary.com dates it to 1585–95.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The word spread with the North American fur trade and Arctic exploration.^[8][2] The verb, to put provisions in a cache, is recorded in 1805 in the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition,^[2][9][3] and the noun was soon used of the stored goods themselves (1836, in George Back's narrative of his Arctic expedition),^[2] which Barnhart puts in the 1830s.^[9] From 1860 it was used of any hiding place for goods or treasure.^[2] In 1968 computer scientists took it for a small, fast memory that holds the data a processor uses most often,^[2][4] and the verb followed in this sense in 1983.^[2]

Timeline

• 1797 – a hiding place for provisions, made by explorers.^[2][9][3]
• 1805 – verb, to store in a cache.^[2][9][3]
• 1836 – the store of provisions hidden.^[2]
• 1860 – a hiding place for goods or treasure in general.^[2]
• 1968 – computing, a small high-speed memory.^[2]
• 1983 – verb, computing, to store data in a cache.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hidden store of things such as food, weapons or treasure: The police found a cache of rifles in the barn.^[14][3][2]
2. A hiding place or secure place where such things are stored.^[14][3][2]
3. (computing) A small, fast memory that keeps copies of frequently used data so that they can be retrieved quickly.^[14][2][4]

Verb

1. To put something in a cache; to hide or store it: The squirrels cached acorns under the hedge.^[14][3][2]
2. (computing) To store data in a cache.^[2]

Related words

• coagulate
• cogent
• squat
• cachet
• cash

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster also records a pronunciation stressed on the second syllable, like cachet, and marks it as one that many people find unacceptable.^[3] Dictionary.com lists cache, cachet and cash as words often confused.^[11] An unrelated noun cache, a ball game like tennis played with the hand, borrowed from Middle Dutch, was used from 1444 to 1643.^[2]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins