cache

American  

[kash] / kæʃ /

noun

• caches
  plural

1. a hiding place, especially one in the ground, for ammunition, food, treasures, etc..

   She hid her jewelry in a little cache in the cellar.

2. anything so hidden.

   The enemy never found our cache of food.

   Synonyms:

   store, reserve, stockpile, hoard

3. Also called cache storage.  Computers. a temporary storage space or memory that allows fast access to data.

   Web browser cache;

   CPU cache.

4. Alaska and Northern Canada. a small shed elevated on poles above the reach of animals and used for storing food, equipment, etc.

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verb (used with object)

• caches,
  present (3rd person singular)
• cached,
  past participle,  past
• caching
  present participle

1. to put in a cache; conceal; hide.

   Synonyms:

   secrete

cache British  

/ kæʃ /

noun

1. a hidden store of provisions, weapons, treasure, etc

2. the place where such a store is hidden

3. computing a small high-speed memory that improves computer performance

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verb

1. (tr) to store in a cache

cache Scientific  

/ kăsh /

1. An area of computer memory devoted to the high-speed retrieval of frequently used or requested data.

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• caches
  plural

Participles

• caching
  present
• cached
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• cache
  simple
• caches
  simple
• have cached
  perfect
• has cached
  perfect
• am caching
  progressive
• are caching
  progressive
• is caching
  progressive
• have been caching
  perfect progressive
• has been caching
  perfect progressive

Past

• cached
  simple
• had cached
  perfect
• was caching
  progressive
• were caching
  progressive
• had been caching
  perfect progressive

Future

• will cache
  simple
• will have cached
  perfect
• will be caching
  progressive
• will have been caching
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of cache

First recorded in 1585–95; from French, noun derivative of cacher “to hide,” from unattested Vulgar Latin coācticāre “to stow away,” originally, “to pack together,” frequentative of Latin coāctāre, equivalent to Latin coāct(us) “collected” (past participle of cōgere “to collect, compel”) + -icā- formative verb suffix + -re infinitive ending

Explanation

Cache sounds like what it is, a stash, and sometimes people — usually the criminal type — have a cache of stolen cash. Often the phrase "weapons cache" is used of a bunch of hidden guns or weapons that have been hidden or stored away, which is logical, given that the French verb cacher means "to hide." Sometimes things aren’t really hidden but are stored away out of sight for use later. Computers even cache data and directories to retrieve when needed. So a cache is anything from a stash of cash to a store of information on reserve.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cache caches cached caching

A forest fire in the south of France has revealed a cache of 400 historic shells and munitions in the village of Le Porge, according to local authorities.

From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026

In 2024, Los Angeles paid $21 million to resolve claims stemming from an incident three years prior where city police blew up a South L.A. neighborhood while detonating a cache of fireworks.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2026

One trend to monitor is something known as key-value cache offloading.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026

Pakistan's information chief said the strikes hit four targets, including a training camp, an ammunition cache and a hideout linked to two TTP commanders.

From Barron's ● Jun. 10, 2026

She has a whole cache of funky hats. chaise longue.

From "Woe Is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner

The Lebanese army went to work clearing Hezbollah positions and weapons caches in the south in an effort the U.S. and even Israel acknowledged was having an effect.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026

For now, actions on the ground, such as dismantling weapons caches and tunnel networks, must be documented, he said.

From Barron's ● Dec. 18, 2025

ProPublica also interviewed more than 100 government and aid officials and reviewed enormous caches of previously unreported memos, correspondence and other documents from inside the Trump administration.

From Salon ● Dec. 16, 2025

Israel said it targeted Hezbollah facilities and weapons caches.

From BBC ● Apr. 10, 2025

Omakayas, ready to do her part, dressed in her warmest clothes, wrapped lengths of rabbit-skin around her feet, put makazins over them and then, Andeg on her shoulder, went to look for the squirrel caches.

From "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich

A JetBlue spokesperson apologized for the error in an email to MarketWatch and said its fares “are not determined by cached data or other personal information.”

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 20, 2026

Taylor notes that the common ancestor of all North American chickadees cached food.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 17, 2024

By observing timestamps of the material and searching for previous versions cached online, we know these videos only appeared online recently.

From BBC ● Feb. 15, 2024

So far, scientists have sequenced the genomes of 1000 dogs and cached 14,000 tissue samples.

From Science Magazine ● Jan. 7, 2024

I had a few pages cached, from right before the feed stopped.

From "Feed" by M.T. Anderson

This allows for caching or storing more information in dedicated memory, which makes the agents faster and cheaper because they don’t have to reprocess the same data for every single interaction, according to Salazar.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 5, 2026

Perseverance has been drilling and caching rocks that appear to have been laid down at the margin of the lake.

From BBC ● Apr. 15, 2024

And yet, caching is relatively understudied in the computer science field.

From Science Daily ● Jan. 24, 2024

UW WR Jalen McMillan is caching passes in early warm ups.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 11, 2023

That night I could feel another message caching.

From "Feed" by M.T. Anderson

Related Words

• hideout
• hoard
• nest egg
• repository
• stash
• stockpile
• storehouse
• treasure
• wealth