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[16] Cash originally meant ‘money-box’. English acquired it via French casse or Italian cassa from Latin capsa ‘box’ (source of English case). It was not until the mid 18th century that this underlying sense died out, leaving the secondary ‘money’ (which had already developed before the word entered English). Cashier ‘person in charge of money’ [16] is a derivative, coming from French caissier or perhaps from Dutch cassier, but the verb cashier ‘dismiss’ [16] is completely unrelated. It comes from Dutch casseren, a borrowing from Old French casser ‘discharge, annul’. This in turn goes back to Latin quassāre ‘break up’, source of English quash.
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