DCHP-1 Online

cache ((n.)) [< F cache < cacher to hide; influenced in several senses by Cdn F use]

• 1a n. a secret hiding place.

  • 1804  (1933)  [I] dispatched Mr. Seraphin . . . to examine a Cache of H W [High Wines] to know if all are safe.
  • 1885  It is believed to this day that there is a cache somewhere in the vicinity where he buried his liquor before taking his departure. . . .
  • 1965  Circling out from the tent they found them in a cache 50 or 60 yards away.

• 1b n. the contents of a secret hiding place.

  • c1669  (1961)  [One hides a cache of meal, the other his camp iron and all, and all that could cumbersome.]
  • 1879  Small caches of wine and spirits, hoarded away from the meagher annual allowance, make their appearance upon the board, and add to the hilarity of the occasion.
  • 1929  The theory came to be accepted that he had "caches" [of gold] buried on his farm.
  • 1964  Police have recovered a large cache of money believed from the $54,000 robbery of a National Employment Service vault in Vancouver.

• 1c n. raise a cache, discover or retrieve a cache or hidden supply of whisky or other goods.

  • 1914  . . . many a whisky cache or hiding-place was raised to enable Pat and his many admirers to do honour to the occasion.
  • 1962  "I raised a cache yesterday," he went on, "but blew it all in last night . . . give me a pick-me-up."

• 2 n. a storing place where supplies, furs, equipment and other goods may be deposited for protection from foraging animals and the weather.

  See also: en cache  hoard  stage ((n.)) (def. 4)  

  • Such caches may be in the form of holes in the ground, ice, or snow, marked or protected by cairns; they may be enclosed platforms set high in trees or merely the upper fork of a tree; or they may be well-built hutch-like contrivances raised off the ground on posts.

  • 1578  (1889)  [Going on shoare [we] found where the people of the Countrie had bene, and had hid their prouision in great heapes of stones, being both fleshe and fishe, which they had killed.]
  • 1797  (1964)  [He] had a large Cash of Provisions at . . . that river. . . .
  • 1808  (1889)  Here we put three bales of salmon into cache and carried the rest through a very rugged country.
  • 1824  (1955)  Here we see a specimine of a Thloadinni cache made in one of the Pine Trees. . . .
  • 1898  (1952)  At the mouth of the "Pelly" . . . were hundreds of men building "Caches" up on the trees, to store their outfits while they went up river prospecting.
  • 1908  [The Eskimos] always made . . . provision for their return . . . by placing in one or more caches (built on and formed of large blocks of thick ice, well protected from wolves or wolverines. . . .
  • 1929  The only circumstances in which they [grizzlies] will attack is when they have a dead animal "in cache". . . .
  • 1963  The Mounties established a cache at Bernard Harbor for their colleagues on the trail from Coppermine. . . .

• 3 n. a supply of provisions, gasoline, and equipment stockpiled for future use.

  See also: gas cache  

  • 1921  Two or three times in the winter he will be visited by bands of hungry Siwash, who . . . will beg everything he has and eat him out of cache and cabin.
  • 1937  Beyond them on shore a cache of gasolene (two hundred barrels) assures them of much winter flying.
  • 1966  . . . Rod Henderson . . . established the smaller caches [on Baffin I.] with the ski-wheel equipped Cessna 185. . . .

• 4 n. a hut, tent, lean-to or other structure used as a storehouse.

  See also: cache house  

  • 1872  (1873)  We made use of the cache or shanty on the bank, opening it for a small quantity of beans or soup.
  • 1912  (1914)  The stores are then put in large "caches" (i.e. large tents or specially constructed log shelters) at convenient points along the right of way. . . .
  • 1964  Vegetation was abundant and various around the yellowish sandstone walls of the cache.

• 5 n. a blind used in hunting game.

  • 1866  Posted on a run, or crouched in his cache of green boughs. . . he knows that the bird . . . announces the approach of the wished-for deer.
  • 1907  . . . we fixed a nice brush cache at different angles to the dam, wherein we were to sit and watch.