Dictionary Definition
cash
Noun
1 money in the form of bills or coins [syn:
hard
cash, hard
currency]
2 prompt payment for goods or services in
currency or by check [syn: immediate
payment] [ant: credit] v : exchange for cash; "I
cashed the check as soon as it arrived in the mail" [syn: cash in]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
- , /kæʃ/, k
Extensive Definition
In bookkeeping and finance, "cash" refers to
current assets comprised of currency or currency equivalents that
can be accessed immediately or near-immediately (as in the case of
money market accounts).
Etymology
The English word cash is of the French caisse, itself a borrowing of the Provençal caissa. That Provençal word is a derivative of the Latin capsa (box, chest), most likely by way of an unattested Vulgar Latin form *capsea; Spanish caja and Portuguese caixa are their respective languages' reflexes.From the original sense of a
box or a chest, the word came to refer to a sum of money such as
was or might be contained in one, and eventually to specie or, with the elimination of
metallic standards, banknotes.
This assimilated Tamil word
was then applied to various other coins with which European traders
came into contact, including the famous holed cash coins of
China, the
Chinese
cash. These coins were commonly strung on cords for use in
larger transactions; 1000 equalled a tael.
Notes
See also
cash in Czech: Hotové
peníze
cash in German:
Bargeld
cash in Spanish: Dinero en
efectivo
cash in French:
Espèces
cash in Italian:
Contante
cash in Luxembourgish:
Boergeld
cash in Hungarian:
Készpénz
cash in Japanese:
現金
cash in Portuguese:
Caixa
cash in Russian: Наличные
деньги
cash in Simple English:
Cash
cash in Swedish:
Kontanter
cash in Chinese:
現金
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
COD, acquitment, acquittal, acquittance, amortization, amortizement, and pence,
available funds, balance in hand, banknotes, bills, binder, bread, cash down, cash in, cash in
hand, cash on delivery, cash payment, cash supply, change, circulating medium,
clearance, coin, coinage, coined liberty, cold
cash, convert into cash, currency, debt service,
defrayal, defrayment, deposit, disbursal, discharge, doling out,
dollars, dough, down, down payment, earnest, earnest money,
emergency money, exchange, filthy lucre,
fractional currency, gelt,
gold, hard cash, hard
currency, hard money, hire purchase, hire purchase plan, immediate
resources, installment, installment
plan, interest payment, jack, legal tender, liquid assets,
liquidate, liquidation, lolly, loot, lucre, mammon, managed currency,
mazuma, medium of
exchange, mintage,
money, money down, money
in hand, monthly payments, moolah, necessity money,
never-never, notes, on
call, on demand, pay COD, pay at sight, pay cash, pay cash down,
pay in advance, pay spot cash, pay-as-you-go, paying, paying off, paying out,
paying up, payment,
payment in kind, payoff,
pelf, postage currency,
postal currency, pounds,
prepayment, quarterly
payments, quittance,
ready, ready money,
realize, regular
payments, remittance,
retirement, satisfaction, scratch, scrip, sell, settlement, shekels, shillings, silver, sinking-fund payment,
soft currency, specie,
spot cash, sterling,
strictly cash, the almighty dollar, the ready, the wherewith, the
wherewithal, treasury,
wampum, weekly
payments