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Etymology and origin of the English word cashier

English has two words spelled cashier: the verb meaning to dismiss from service, borrowed from Dutch, and the noun for a person in charge of money, from French caissier.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

  • UK: /kəˈʃɪə/[4]

cashier1 dismiss from service

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1580 Thomas North, translation of Plutarch's Lives
Borrowed from
Dutch casseren
Ultimate origin
Latin cassus

Etymology

The verb to dismiss is borrowed from Dutch casseren (“to disband soldiers; to rescind a will”),[5][6][1][7] which the OED and the Shorter Oxford also call Flemish;[5][8] Barnhart and Etymonline give Middle Dutch casseren, also kaseeren, to cast off, discharge.[2][6] The OED cites Kiliaan for the Dutch phrases "to disband soldiers" and "to rescind a will", and compares German kassieren.[5] The Dutch verb is from Middle French casser (“to break; to discharge, annul”).[6][1][7][8] Barnhart, Etymonline and Partridge trace the French verb to Late Latin cassō (“to annul”), from cassus (“void, empty”),[2][6][9] and Partridge rejects a source in quassō (“to shake, shatter”);[9] the Shorter Oxford, the Oxford Dictionary of English, Weekley and Dictionary.com take it from quassō, the source of quash.[8][10][11][12] The OED notes that French verbs taken into Dutch and German often keep the French infinitive ending as part of the stem, but that few such verbs reached English.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To discharge or disband troops: 1580, in Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives.[5]

Semantic evolution

The OED thinks the word probably came into English with the campaign in the Netherlands of 1585,[5] and Barnhart explains it by the contact of English soldiers with the Dutch there.[2] Early spellings were casseir and casseere, the latter in 1592 in Greene's Groatsworth of Wit.[2][3][9] From disbanding troops (until 1736) it passed to dismissing a person from service in general (1592), and then, from 1599, to dismissing an officer from a command, which in the army and navy meant disgrace and permanent exclusion.[5][8] It was also used for annulling a thing (1596–1650), and since 1603 for discarding or getting rid of something.[5] In Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor Bardolph's cashiered seems to mean relieved of one's cash.[5] Weekley lists it among the military words English took from the Low Countries, with furlough and roster.[11]

Timeline

  • 1580 – to disband troops (obsolete by 1736).[5]
  • 1592 – to dismiss from service, spelled casseere.[5][2]
  • 1596 – to annul (obsolete by 1650).[5]
  • 1599 – to dismiss an officer from a command, in disgrace.[5]
  • 1603 – to discard, cast off.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To dismiss someone from service, especially to dismiss an officer from the armed forces formally and in disgrace: The court-martial ordered the major cashiered.[1][5][8]
  2. To discard or get rid of something.[1][5]
  3. (obsolete, 1580–1736) To disband troops.[5][8]

cashier2 person in charge of money

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1596 Thomas Nashe, Haue with you to Saffron-Walden
Borrowed from
French caissier
Ultimate origin
Latin capsa

Etymology

The person in charge of money is borrowed from French caissier (“treasurer”),[5][6][2][11] or, in other dictionaries, Dutch cassier or its French source;[13][8][10][3] Etymonline and Klein name kassier as the possible immediate source.[6][7] The French word is formed from caisse (“money box”) and the suffix -ier,[2][5] and caisse is from Old Occitan caisa,[13] or caissa in Dictionary.com,[12] from Vulgar Latin *capsea,[13] from Latin capsa (“box, case”),[13][12] the source of case "box".[12] Klein stresses that it is not derived from cash, though cash comes from the same French word;[7][6] Johnson had derived it from cash.[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who has charge of the cash of a bank or business, paying and receiving money and keeping the account: 1596, in Thomas Nashe's Haue with you to Saffron-Walden.[5][2]

Semantic evolution

Merriam-Webster dates the noun to 1593 and Dictionary.com to 1570–80.[1][12] Johnson (1755) defined it as "he that has charge of the money".[14] A sense "money-dealer" was used from 1643 to 1687.[5] In American banking the word also names one of the senior officers responsible for the money received and paid out.[1] Collins adds the person who takes payments in a shop and the bank clerk called a teller in other varieties.[15]

Timeline

  • 1596 – one who has charge of the cash of a bank or business.[5][2]
  • 1643 – a money-dealer (obsolete by 1687).[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A person who takes customers' payments in a shop, restaurant or other business: The cashier counted out my change.[15][1]
  2. A bank employee who receives deposits and pays out money; a teller.[15][1]
  3. A senior officer of a bank or company responsible for the money it receives and pays out.[1][5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  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 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ a b c d e Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  13. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  14. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

  • yacht · also from Dutch
  • crawl · also from Dutch
  • skate · also from Dutch
  • hooker · also from Dutch
  • funk · also from Dutch
  • stoke · also from Dutch
  • gin · also from Dutch
  • rant · also from Dutch
Cite this entry

“Cashier.” Etymologically, 26 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/cashier. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

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