cash register

American  

noun

cash registers plural

1. a business machine that indicates to customers the amounts of individual sales, has a money drawer from which to make change, records and totals receipts, and may automatically calculate the change due.

---

cash register British  

noun

1. a till with a keyboard that operates a mechanism for displaying and adding the amounts of cash received in individual sales

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• cash registers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of cash register

An Americanism dating back to 1875–80

Example Sentences

Waking up early, pricing items, setting up tables and manning the cash register — all of this is, as you say, labor.

From MarketWatch • May 28, 2026

They agreed to pay half a cent more at the cash register to fund buses, trains and pothole fillings in 2016.

From Los Angeles Times • May 12, 2026

Now they’re changing the currency on the cash register.

From MarketWatch • Dec. 16, 2025

They will deliver packages for Amazon or man a supermarket cash register to pay their bills.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 9, 2025

They were still talking about pen-and-ink portraits and couldn't understand my desire to drag a heavy cash register through the forest.

From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris