▪ I. cache, n.
(kæʃ, formerly also kɑːʃ)
Also 6 casshe.
[a. F. cache, f. cacher to hide.]
1. a. A hiding place, esp. of goods, treasure, etc.
| 1860 C. Innes Scotl. in Mid. Ages x. 310 The little cache on the Orkney sea-shore, produced 16 pound weight of silver. 1866 W. R. King Sportsm. & Nat. in Canada iii. 57 Crouched in his cache of green boughs. |
b. esp. A hole or mound made by American pioneers and Arctic explorers to hide stores of provisions, ammunition, etc.
| 1797 C. Chaboillez Jrnl. in B. C. Payette Northwest (1964) 154 [He] had a large Cash of Provisions at..that river. 1805 Lewis & Clark Jrnls. (1904) II. 134 These holes in the ground or deposits are called by the engages caches (cachés). Ibid. VII. 99 We put in the carsh or hole..the bellowses. 1817 J. Bradbury Trav. 118 The Aricaras could not spare any provisions, as the excessive rains had penetrated into their caches, and spoiled the whole of their reserved stock. 1837 W. Irving Capt. Bonneville I. 267 Captain Bonneville..prevailed upon them to proceed..to the caches. 1856 Kane Arct. Expl. I. xii. 138 The power of the bear in breaking up a provision cache is extraordinary. 1878 Markham Gt. Frozen Sea v. 62 Every cairn and cache was thoroughly examined. |
2. The store of provisions so hidden.
| 183.. Back Jrnl. Arctic Voy. (Bartlett), I took advantage of a detached heap of stones, to make a cache of a bag of pemmican. 1842 Fremont Report Exp. Rocky Mts. (1845) 22 As this was to be a point in our homeward journey, I made a cache (a term used in all this country for what is hidden in the ground) of a barrel of pork. 1865 Lubbock Preh. Times xiv. (1869) 484 The Esquimaux..they all of them make ‘caches’ of meat under stone cairns. |
3. Computing. A small high-speed memory in some computers into which are placed the most frequently accessed contents of the slower main memory or secondary storage. Also cache memory.
| 1968 IBM Syst. Jrnl. VII. 17 If the data is not present in the cache, additional cycles are required while the block is loaded into the cache from main storage. 1970 Electronics World Oct. 37/2 Cache or buffer storage, when used in a computer system, is interposed between the main memory and the CPU. 1979 Sci. Amer. May 1/2 An optional high-speed cache memory reduces main memory access time to accelerate program execution. 1983 What's New in Computing Jan. 6/2 The P/35 and P/60 utilize additional performance enhancements such as high speed cache memory. 1987 Electronics & Wireless World Jan. 105/1 If the information is held in the cache, which can be thought of as very fast on-chip local memory, then only two clock cycles are required. |
▪ II. cache, v. orig. U.S.
(kæʃ, formerly also kɑːʃ)
[f. cache n.: cf. F. cacher.]
trans. To put in a cache; to store (provisions) under ground; said also of animals.
| 1805 Lewis & Clark Jrnls. (1904) VII. 139 We carried our baggage we concluded to carsh to the place of cashing. 1823 E. James Acct. Expedition Rocky Mts. I. x. 193 They then proceed to cache, or conceal in the earth these acquisitions. 1856 Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxiii. 288 He accordingly cached enough provision to last them back. 1865 Ld. Milton & W. Cheadle N. West Pass. v. 75 We now proceeded..to remove the cask from its hiding-place, and..to cache it safely at some distance. 1877 Coues Fur Anim. ii. 51 When they [wolverenes] can eat no more, they continue to steal the baits and câche them. |
Hence cached (kæʃt), ppl. a.
| 1901 S. E. White Westerners vii. 47 Lone Wolf's band took up quarters within striking distance of the cached schooners. a 1910 ‘O. Henry’ Trimmed Lamp (1916) 230 The man from Nome, loyal to her who had resurrected his long cached heart..followed her. |
Add: 2. Computing. To store (data, files, images, etc.) in a cache or part of a memory used as a cache.
| 1983 Electronics 14 July 118/2 The Z80,000 may choose to cache only instructions, but caching data along with instructions typically improves performance by some 20{pcnt}. 1986 Personal Computer World Nov. 171/3 Window images are normally cached in a form to allow fast screen redraw. 1988 Computer Weekly 29 Sept. 48 This is achieved by temporarily caching files on a system magnetic disc, and by emulating standard VMS file system on-disc structures. |
▪ III. cache
obs. form of cash, Chinese money.
▪ IV. cache(n
obs. form of catch v.