cache
Americannoun
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a hiding place, especially one in the ground, for ammunition, food, treasures, etc..
She hid her jewelry in a little cache in the cellar.
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anything so hidden.
The enemy never found our cache of food.
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Also called cache storage. Computers. a temporary storage space or memory that allows fast access to data.
Web browser cache;
CPU cache.
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Alaska and Northern Canada. a small shed elevated on poles above the reach of animals and used for storing food, equipment, etc.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a hidden store of provisions, weapons, treasure, etc
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the place where such a store is hidden
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computing a small high-speed memory that improves computer performance
verb
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.
Vocabulary lists containing cache
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
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"The Odyssey" by Homer, Books 8–13
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Computer Science and Technology - Middle School
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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.
AI models use a technique called KV cache to remember certain things so they don’t have to recompute everything from scratch every single time they run a query.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 5, 2026
Despite garnering an Oscar nomination for Streep and an ingenious bit at that year’s ceremony, “The Devil Wears Prada” didn’t have the immediate cultural cache of something like its equally memeable predecessor, “Mean Girls.”
From Salon • Apr. 20, 2026
DeepSeek started life in 2023 as a side project of a hedge fund that had access to a cache of powerful Nvidia processors.
From Barron's • Apr. 9, 2026
Still, TurboQuant is only focused on key-value cache memory, a technique used for an AI model to “remember” data that it has processed so that it can respond quickly.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 27, 2026
I dug a little deeper, pushing aside a cache of books.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
