Trending: ‘cache’

Cache peeked out from its hiding place and discovered that it was among our top lookups on January 18th, 2019. The word spiked after it appeared in an article in BuzzFeed News that alleged President Trump had directed his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress.

The special counsel’s office learned about Trump’s directive for Cohen to lie to Congress through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents.
— Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier, BuzzFeed News (buzzfeednews.com), 17 Jan. 2019

We define cache as “a hiding place especially for concealing and preserving provisions or implements,” “a secure place of storage,” and “something hidden or stored in a cache.” The word has additional applicability outside of the realm of political scandal, referring to “a computer memory with very short access time used for storage of frequently or recently used instructions or data.”

Cache, due to its terminal e and enchanting French origins, often leaves people flummoxed as to how to pronounce it. Although it shares a root with cachet (“prestige”), both words coming from a French word meaning “to hide” (cacher), these words are not pronounced in the same manner. Cache rhymes with sash, and cachet with sashay.