cache

1 of 2

noun

ˈkash

Synonyms of cache next

: a hiding place especially for concealing and preserving provisions or implements

: a secure place of storage

discovered a cache of weapons

: something hidden or stored in a cache

The cache consisted of documents and private letters.

: a computer memory with very short access time used for storage of frequently or recently used instructions or data

called also cache memory

cache

2 of 2

verb

cached; caching

transitive verb

: to place (something) in a cache: such as

: to place or store (something) in a hidden or secure place for safety or concealment

cache camp supplies by a lake

coins cached in a teapot

computers : to place (instructions or data) in cache memory for temporary storage

caching websites to speed up future retrieval

Did you know?

Cash and Cache

Cache and cash are homophones (words that are pronounced alike but have different meanings, origins, or spelling) whose likeness in sound may lead to perplexity.

Cache primarily refers to a thing that is hidden or stored somewhere, or to the place where it is hidden. It has recently taken on another common meaning, “short-term computer memory where information is stored for easy retrieval.” Cash, on the other hand, is most often used in the sense “ready money.”

If you find yourself confused by these words, remember that you can store cash in a cache, but you can't do the reverse. Be mindful, too, that if you run out of cash you won't be able to buy something, but if you're short on cache, your computer won’t work.

Example Sentences

Noun a weapons cache used by terrorists Police found a cache of stolen cars in the woods. Her new laptop has one megabyte of cache. Verb an eccentric who cached money in odd places, such as under the boards of the floor cached the fugitives in their cellar until they could make their way to Canada

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Hyrule is littered with caches of wooden planks, beams, and wheels and a variety of neon-green machines called Zonai devices to pair with them. —

Vulture, 12 May 2023 The extraordinary cache of recent and highly sensitive U.S. intelligence documents that have appeared these last weeks on social media sites and gaming chatrooms – largely focused on military and diplomatic aspects of the war in Ukraine – includes revelations on friend and foe alike. —

Howard Lafranchi, The Christian Science Monitor, 11 Apr. 2023 The cache of documents also showed talk hosts like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham repeatedly disparage the small handful of journalists left at the network who are trying to honestly report the news. —

Oliver Darcy, CNN, 9 Mar. 2023 Many airlines keep a cache of spares on hand, but there simply aren’t enough replacement engines available to keep pace with repairs. —

Siddharth Vikram Philip, Fortune, 9 Mar. 2023 Lee Men's Legendary Regular Tapered Jean in Union Fade Now 20% Off $37 at lee.com Credit: Courtesy of Retailer Few denim brands have the history and heritage cache of Lee. —

Christian Gollayan, Men's Health, 6 Mar. 2023 In 2016, WikiLeaks obtained and released an enormous cache of email correspondence from the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. —

Andrew Cockburn, Harper’s Magazine , 10 Feb. 2023 The cache, estimated to be worth $315 million, is large enough to supply the Australian market for a year, and New Zealand’s for three decades, New Zealand Police Commissioner Andrew Coster told reporters Wednesday. —

Andrew Jeong, Washington Post, 8 Feb. 2023 These wunderkinder have a cache of exceptional academic credentials from prestigious universities. —

Roomy Khan, Forbes, 6 Feb. 2023

Verb

Jays are said to cache a kabillion nuts, give or take, every winter, and unerringly remember the location of each one. —

Murr Brewster, The Christian Science Monitor, 28 Apr. 2023 In both incidents, officials caught Rae collecting and caching elk antlers inside Bridger-Teton National Forest boundaries during a closed season. —

Dac Collins, Outdoor Life, 24 Apr. 2023 Leverage Caching One of the most effective ways to speed up a website is by leveraging caching. —

Expert Panel®, Forbes, 7 Mar. 2023 To continue their research into robot deception, Arkin and his team were inspired by the food caching behaviors of squirrels. —

IEEE Spectrum, 3 Dec. 2012 The carbon-caching capacity of peatlands is enormous. —

Michelle Nijhuis, The New York Review of Books, 30 Mar. 2023 But TorrentFreak documented the DMCA Twitter saga in great detail, gathering archived and cached tweets to piece together what happened. —

Ashley Belanger, Ars Technica, 7 Mar. 2023 These people cached their weapons in Virginia, across the river. —

Marilyn W. Thompson, ProPublica, 28 Feb. 2023 There can be different problems affecting your website's load time, such as code density, heavy images, JavaScript issues, caching problems, unnecessary plugins, excessive redirects, mediocre hosting and so on. —

Yec, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cache.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Noun

borrowed from North American French, from French, "hiding place," noun derivative of cacher "to hide, conceal," going back to Old French cachier, quaichier "to put away, lock up, cover, remove from view, conceal" (also Middle French cacher "to press, crush"), going back to Vulgar Latin *coācticāre "to press, constrict," from Latin coāctāre "to compel" (frequentative of cōgere "to drive together, collect, compress, compel") + -icāre, verb formative — more at cogent

Note: The etymological sense "to compress, constrict" is not attested for the Old French verb, though it likely existed and is apparent in the prefixed form escachier "to crush and flatten, break by pressing or falling on." From the sense "compress" presumably developed the senses "lock up, cover, put away," and hence "remove from view, conceal," common from the sixteenth century. The sense "to press, crush" is marginally evident in Middle French in areas in contact with Occitan, though it penetrated widely enough to form the basis for the derivative cachet "seal" (see cachet).

Verb

verbal derivative of cache entry 1

First Known Use

Noun

1797, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Verb

1805, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler

The first known use of cache was in 1797

See more words from the same year