[ad. F. casse ‘a box, case, chest, to carrie or kepe wares in, also a Marchants cash or counter’ (Cotgr.), or its source It. cassa ‘a chest,… also, a merchants cashe or counter’ (Florio, 1598):—L. capsa coffer, CASE. Mod.F. has caisse, Sp. caxa, Pg. caixa: the phonetic history of the Eng. word is not clear; the earliest known instances have cash; the sense ‘money’ also occurs notably early, seeing that it is not in the other langs.]
† 1. A chest or box for money; a cash-box, till.
1598. Florio, and 1611 Cotgr. [see above] a Marchants cash, or counter.
a. 1617. Winwood, Memorials, III. 281 (T.). 20,000l. are known to be in her cash.
1673. Temple, Observ. United Prov., ii. 100 (R.). This Bank is properly a general Cash, where every man lodges his money.
a. 1693. Urquhart, Rabelais, III. xli. 342. They had … emptied their own Cashes and Coffers of … Coin.
a. 1734. North, Lives, III. 387. He always carried a cash on purpose for them [the beggars].
† b. A sum of money. Obs.
1677. Yarranton, Eng. Improv., 20. As the Land and Personal Security is at this day, no living man … can take a great Cash into his hands, and pay six in the hundred for it.
1707. C. N., Poem on Union, 19. A flowing Cash, an Universal Trade.
a. 1715. Burnet, Own Time (1766), I. 327. There was a considerable cash in his hands, partly for the pay of his men.
1752. Hume, Ess. & Treat. (1777), I. 372. No merchant thinks it necessary to keep by him any considerable cash.
2. Money; in the form of coin, ready money. a. Formerly in literary and general use; but now only commercial (see b), or consciously used as a sort of commercial slang.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, 106. He put his hand in his pocket but … not to pluck out anie cash.
1661. Needham, Hist. Eng. Rebellion, 48. For a twelve months cash.
1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 188. Or as a Thief bent to unhoord the cash Of some rich Burgher.
1686. Burnet, Trav., ii. (1750), 95. There was great store of Cash and many Jewels in the House.
1734. Swift, Drapier’s Lett., Wks. 1755, V. II. 55. Very near as much as the current cash of the kingdom in those days.
1727. A. Hamilton, New Acc. E. Ind., II. xlv. 149. Bees-wax is the current Cash in that Country.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia, II. iii. (1783), 187. Where’s the cash? who’s to pay the piper?
1788. Priestley, Lect. Hist., III. xv. 124. The quantity of circulating cash in different nations.
1810. Sir A. Boswell, Edinburgh, 155. Those who have cash, come here to spend.
1858. Greener, Gunnery, 231. Let but some individual, with the head and the cash, try the experiment of making guns himself at Birmingham.
b. As a term of banking and commerce, used to signify, in its strictest sense, specie; also, less strictly, bank-notes that can at once be converted into specie, and are therefore taken as ‘cash,’ in opposition to bills or other securities. Also in the phrases hard cash, ready cash, cash in hand.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., II. i. 120. Nym. I shall haue my Noble? Pist. In cash, most justly payd.
1641. Jrnls. Ho. Commons, II. 235. Three hundred Pounds ready Cash.
1696. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), IV. 100. Only bills or notes, and not cash.
1753. Scots Mag., XV. Oct., 512/1. He had then but little cash in hand.
1782. T. Pickering, in Sparks, Corr. Amer. Rev. (1853), III. 512. These notes are not received there as cash, but only as pledges.
1817. Parl. Debates, 1528. On and after the 1st October next, the Bank will be ready to pay cash for their notes of every description, dated prior to the 1st Jan. 1817.
1837. W. Irving, Capt. Bonneville (1849), 38. He required hard cash in return for some corn.
1852. McCulloch, Comm. Dict., Cash, in commerce, means the ready money, bills, drafts, bonds, and all immediately negotiable paper in an individual’s possession.
1885. Manch. Exam., 21 July, 5/2. To pay down the price in ready cash.
fig. a. 1715. Burnet, Own Time (1766), I. 266. He had the most learning in ready cash of any he ever knew.
† c. Minted coin, current coin. Obs.
1614. T. Adams, Devil’s Banquet, 205. To buy leaden trash, with golden cash.
1691. Locke, Money, Wks. 1727, II. 92. The current Cash being … computed … to want half its Standard Weight. Ibid., Lower. Interest, 93. Clipping had left none but light running cash.
1708. Motteux, Rabelais, V. xv. (1737), 60. Had it not been enough to have thrown the Hell-Hounds a few cropt Pieces of white Cash?
d. It is also the regular term for ‘money’ in Book-keeping. See cash account in 3.
1651. in Index Royalists (Index Soc.), 18. The said treasurers or their clerk of the cash.
1875. Poste, Gaius, III. § 131. The entry of a person as debtor to cash does not constitute an obligation, but is evidence of an obligation.
e. Phrases. Out of cash, in cash.
1593. Peele, Edw. I. (1830), 57. Now the Friar is out of cash five nobles, God knows how he shall come into cash again.
1609. Rowlands, Doctor Merrie-m., 23. If once I doe begin perceiue That out of cash they bee.
1752. W. Stewart, in Scots Mag. (1753), Sept., 445/2. He was not in cash, and could not send the five pounds.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl. (1815), 157. With his credit when he is out of cash.
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, xxxvi. He bets … freely when he is in cash.
3. attrib. and Comb., as cash-box, -chest, -remittance; cash-account (see quot.); cash-book, in Book-keeping, a book in which is entered a record of cash paid and received; cash-boy, in large shops, a boy who carries the money received by the salesman from a customer to the cashier, and brings back the change; cash-credit (see quot.); † cash-house, a counting-house; cash-keeper, one who has charge of cash, a treasurer, a cashier; cash-payment, payment in ready money, spec. the payment of cash for government paper money or bank-notes; cash-price, the price at which an article is sold for ready money; cash-sale, a sale for ready money; † cash-weight (see quot.).
1852. McCulloch, Comm. Dict., *Cash account, in book-keeping, an account to which nothing but cash is carried on the one hand, and from which all the disbursements of the concern are drawn on the other…. Cash account, in banking, is the name given to the account of the advances made by a banker in Scotland, to an individual who has given security for their repayment.
1622. Malynes, Anc. Law-Merch., 371. To keepe an orderly *Cash Booke of all the moneys receiued and payed out.
1875. Poste, Gaius, III. 410. The Roman account-book, he supposes, was essentially a Cash-book.
1864. Skeat, trans. Uhland’s Poems, 85. That on the *cash-box watchful sits.
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. V., ccxcviii. *Cash-catchers is a Trade to ravish Clownes.
1719. W. Wood, Surv. Trade, 335. It [money] must lie dead in the *Cash-Chest.
1866. Crump, Banking, iii. 76. Overdrawn accounts, or, as they are sometimes called, *‘cash-credits,’ are not unusual with country bankers.
1879. Birmingh. Weekly Post, 8 Feb., 1/4. The same discount that most tradesmen will gladly allow to a *cash customer.
1633. T. Adams, Exp. 2 Peter i. 11. The oppressor doth more hurt sitting silently in his *cash house.
1626. Raleigh’s Ghost, in Harl. Misc. (Malh.), III. 539. Gondomar … chief *cash-keeper for the order of Alcantara.
1705. Vanbrugh, Confed., I. ii. Her Cash-Keeper’s out of humour, he says he has no money.
1803. Edin. Rev., II. 102. The statute of 1797 for stopping the *cash-payments.
1852. McCulloch, Taxation, II. xi. 380/1. When the currency recovered its value, and cash payments were resumed.
1875. Jevons, Money (1878), 35. Iron money could not be used in cash payments at the present day.
1866. Crump, Banking, vii. 143. Inland exchange is the employment of bills in the discharge of debts, whereby *cash remittances are avoided.
1750. Beawes, Lex Mercat. (1752), 874. Genoa … has … *Cash Weights, for Plate and Coin.
