Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An amount of goods or valuables, especially when kept in a concealed or hard-to-reach place.
  • noun The concealed or hard-to-reach place used for storing a cache.
  • noun A fast storage buffer in the central processing unit of a computer.
  • transitive verb To hide or store in a cache. synonym: hide.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A place of concealment, especially in the ground or under a cairn.
  • noun A store of provisions or other things deposited in such a place of concealment, for present convenience or for future use.
  • To conceal, generally by burying in the ground or under a cairn.
  • A Middle English form of catch.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To store in a cache{1}.
  • noun A hole in the ground, or other hiding place, for concealing and preserving provisions which it is inconvenient to carry.
  • noun That which is hidden in a cache{2}; a hoard; a stockpile.
  • noun (Computers) A form of memory in a computer which has a faster access time than most of main memory, and is usually used to store the most frequently accessed data in main memory during execution of a program.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A store of things that may be required in the future, which can be retrieved rapidly, protected or hidden in some way.
  • noun computing A fast temporary storage where recently or frequently used information is stored to avoid having to reload it from a slower storage medium.
  • noun geocaching A container containing treasure in a global treasure-hunt game.
  • verb To place in a cache.
  • verb For the herb in a bowl to be entirely burnt to ashes and therefore having become empty, gone, or useless for further smoking

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a secret store of valuables or money
  • noun (computer science) RAM memory that is set aside as a specialized buffer storage that is continually updated; used to optimize data transfers between system elements with different characteristics
  • noun a hidden storage space (for money or provisions or weapons)
  • verb save up as for future use

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from cacher, to hide, from Old French, to press, hide, from Vulgar Latin *coācticāre, to store, pack together, frequentative of Latin coāctāre, to constrain, from coāctus, past participle of cōgere, to force; see cogent.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French cache (as used by French Canadian trappers to mean "hiding place for stores"), from the verb cacher.

Support

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Examples

  • Among the bigger changes, we've completed the overhaul of the Nickname cache article to document where to find the cache in Outlook 2010 and we've consolidated all of the MAPI Constants into a single article.

    Site Home Stephen Griffin - MSFT 2011

  • Among the bigger changes, we've completed the overhaul of the Nickname cache article to document where to find the cache in Outlook 2010 and we've consolidated all of the MAPI Constants into a single article.

    Site Home Stephen Griffin - MSFT 2011

  • Disk Cache Buffer in main memory  for disk sectors Contains a copy of some  The term cache of the sectors memory is usually used to apply to a The term memory … cache that is memory smaller and … memory Disk I / O … that is smaller requests Disk cache Disk 18

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2009

  • This is because the user is still trying to use an en-us label cache which is now invalid because of the flush.

    Site Home 2010

  • In the context of Web browsers, the cache is a block of temporary storage data comprised of information such as browsing history, pre-set e-mail account and private web site passwords.

    Internet News: IE Browser on Public Machines 2007

  • IE: go to google and type in "cache:" where is the site you are trying to recover.

    UFies.org: December 2003 Archives 2003

  • IE: go to google and type in "cache:" where is the site you are trying to recover.

    Big UFies.org Hardware Problems (again, and worse) - UFies.org 2003

  • March 2002 (11) 28: Tip: Getting IE 5 Mac to refresh after the cache is emptied (0) 28: Image rollovers with no JavaScript (0) 27: Dreamweaver Accessibility Add-0ns (0) 27: What is Section 508?

    Web Teacher › Archives 2010

  • “Free” has a certain cache of being “not worth the time and effort of a commercial game”.

    Pirates, Flattery and Disappointment in Lilliput!! « Third Point of Singularity 2010

  • How are ye? '— and you say, ` Is that my good husband?' — and I say ` Yes, '— and you say, ` No can bake good bread, no more soda,' — then say, ` Look in cache, under flour; good-by. '

    THE WHITE SILENCE 2010

Comments

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  • This one-syllable word is pronounced exactly like the thing it often holds: CASH. It does not mean "prestige" or "distinction"; that's cachet (pronounced kæ-SHAY).

    October 12, 2008

  • I hear it more often as kaysh.

    October 13, 2008