Talk:cash
Latest comment: 4 years ago by Sundar in topic Etymology
Adjective - English
[edit]The adjective meaning cool or of good quality is a slang term.
- That concert was cash. ~ TheSun 05:12, 28 September 2008 (UTC) ~
Done Added. Equinox ◑ 17:58, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Not sure whether obvious sum of parts or not: Chambers 1908 defines cash account as "an account to which nothing is carried but cash" and "a form of account with a bank, by which a person is entitled to draw out sums as required by way of loan to a stipulated amount; also called cash-credit". Equinox ◑ 17:58, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Etymology
[edit]I found the following etymology in the The Hobson-Jobson Anglo-Indian dictionary. Can this be added to the article? EDIT: Never mind, I just saw Etymology 2. Will cite this source for that.
CASH (p. 167) CASH , s. A name applied by Europeans to sundry coins of low value in various parts of the Indies. The word in its original form is of extreme antiquity, "Skt. karsha . . . a weight of silver or gold equal to 1⁄400 of a Tulā" (Williams, Skt. Dict.; and see also a Note on the Kārsha, or rather kārshāpaṇa, as a copper coin of great antiquity, in E. Thomas's Pathân Kings of Delhi, 361-362). From the Tam. form kāsu, or perhaps from some Konkani form which we have not traced, the Portuguese seem to have made caixa, whence the English cash. In Singalese also kāsi is used for 'coin' in general. The English term was appropriated in the monetary system which prevailed in S. India up to 1818; thus there was a copper coin for use in Madras struck in England in 1803, which bears on the reverse, "XX Cash." A figure of this coin is given in Ruding. Under this system 80 cash=1 fanam, 42 fanams=1 star pagoda. But from an early date the Portuguese had applied caixa to the small money of foreign systems, such as those of the Malay Islands, and especially to that of the Chinese. In China the word cash is used, by Europeans and their hangers-on, as the synonym of the Chinese le and tsien, which are those coins made of an alloy of copper and lead with a square hole in the middle, which in former days ran 1000 to the liang or tael (q.v.), and which are strung in certain numbers on cords. [This type of money, as was recently pointed out by Lord Avebury, is a survival of the primitive currency, which was in the shape of an axe.] Rouleaux of coin thus strung are represented on the surviving bank-notes of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368 onwards), and probably were also on the notes of their Mongol predecessors.
The existence of the distinct English word cash may probably have affected the form of the corruption before us. This word had a European origin from It. cassa, French caisse, 'the moneychest': this word in book-keeping having given name to the heading of account under which actual disbursements of coin were entered (see Wedgwood and N.E.D. s.v.). In Minsheu (2nd ed. 1627) the present sense of the word is not attained. He only gives "a tradesman's Cash, or Counter to keepe money in."Yule, Henry, Sir. Hobson-Jobson: A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases, and of kindred terms, etymological, historical, geographical and discursive. New ed. edited by William Crooke, B.A. London: J. Murray, 1903.