cashier
1 Americannoun
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cashiers
plural
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an employee, as in a market or department store, who collects payments for customer purchases.
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an executive who has charge of money, especially one who superintends monetary transactions, as in a bank.
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an employee of a business establishment who keeps a record of financial transactions.
verb (used with object)
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cashiers,
present (3rd person singular)
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cashiered,
past participle, past
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cashiering
present participle
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to dismiss (a military officer) from service, especially with disgrace.
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to discard; reject.
noun
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a person responsible for receiving payments for goods, services, etc, as in a shop
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Also called: teller. an employee of a bank responsible for receiving deposits, cashing cheques, and other financial transactions; bank clerk
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any person responsible for handling cash or maintaining records of its receipt and disbursement
verb
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to dismiss with dishonour, esp from the armed forces
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rare to put away or discard; reject
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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cashiersimple
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cashierssimple
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have cashieredperfect
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has cashieredperfect
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am cashieringprogressive
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are cashieringprogressive
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is cashieringprogressive
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have been cashieringperfect progressive
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has been cashieringperfect progressive
Past
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cashieredsimple
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had cashieredperfect
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was cashieringprogressive
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were cashieringprogressive
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had been cashieringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cashier1
First recorded in 1570–80; from Middle French caissier “custodian of a money-box” (perhaps via Dutch ), equivalent to caisse “money-box” (from Provençal caissa, from Latin capsa “a case”) + -ier noun suffix; see origin at case 2, -ier 2
Origin of cashier2
1570–80; < Middle Dutch kasseren < Middle French casser to break, discharge, annul < Latin quassāre to shatter; see quash
Explanation
A cashier is someone who works at a store ringing up people's purchases. Most cashiers use a cash register for keeping money and making change. Fast food restaurants, grocery stores, and book shops all hire cashiers to scan purchases or manually enter their prices into a register, process the customer's payment, and put the items in bags. In Britain, you can also call a bank teller a cashier. The word is from the Middle French caissier, "treasurer," which comes from caisse, "money box."
Vocabulary lists containing cashier
Material World: Shopping Lingo
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Attention, Shoppers!
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Spelling Practice 2, Unit 7
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She comes back in to say something animatedly to the cashier.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026
"It was horrible, like nothing we ever experienced. My daughter was trapped in school. Thank God we are okay," Juana Alveo, a 38-year-old cashier at a store in the central city of Penonome told AFP.
From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026
By the second day, one friend was walking arm-in-arm toward the cinnamon bread grist mill with its cashier.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
She tells a cashier at a place called Taco King that she will report him for having uncovered hair if he doesn’t give her a free order of fries.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 16, 2026
Standing at the checkout counter with an armload of sock monkeys, I told the cashier, "These are for a piece I'm working on. It's a performance commissioned by the art museum. I'm an artist."
From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris
At a Co-op store in London, the BBC is shown staff wearing body cams, CCTV, a one-way system with gates and screens protecting cashiers from potential offenders.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
Shoppers and cashiers alike are left navigating this maze, unsure whether their next purchase will pass or fail.
From Salon ● Jan. 3, 2026
Every one of the cashiers had a banking degree, and some of the kitchen workers had engineering Ph.D.s.
From Slate ● Nov. 13, 2025
Women make up most of the college-educated workforce, but are also overrepresented in lower-earning jobs like home health aides, cashiers and food servers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2025
That meant no friends, classmates, teachers, parents, brothers, or supermarket cashiers nearby or within earshot.
From "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan
It Is fast-growing, opaque and intertwined with banks but lacks the scale and leverage that cashiered the economy in 2007.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026
That’s what Britain did in World War I when it cashiered H.H.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 10, 2024
Maybe I wouldn’t have been cashiered out of the computer lab because my 3-year-old was “banging on a keyboard.”
From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2022
Their last matches came in the Premier League, both having been cashiered from the FA Cup in the third round and therefore sitting it out last weekend.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 9, 2022
Villacorta was cashiered for the moment, but a few years later we find him installed as governor of Tucuman.
From The South American Republics Part I of II by Thomas C. Dawson
The cashiering of Caldwell is notable because of his relationship with Hegseth.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2025
From students to adults, volunteers staff customer service, cashiering, security and even help to build display booths.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 11, 2021
What the firing of as many as 85,000 Baathists actually meant, then, was the cashiering of countless more people and the instant impoverishment of entire clans and tribes.
From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2016
But donors will hold off cashiering Bush, even if he finishes in the middle of the New Hampshire pack.
From Slate ● Feb. 7, 2016
“This job is so much better than cashiering in the grocery store.”
From "Paradise on Fire" by Jewell Parker Rhodes
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
