caissier

The money-handling cashier comes from French caissier, from caisse (a money box, a cash register), from Italian cassa, from Latin capsa (a box, a container). Capsa is also the root of 'case' and 'capsule.' The cashier was the person who managed the caisse — the money box. Dutch adopted the word as cassier, and English borrowed it by the late sixteenth century. The word names a person by the object they tend, like a doorkeeper or a gatekeeper.

The military verb 'to cashier' — meaning to dismiss an officer in disgrace — has a completely different origin. It comes from Dutch casseren, from French casser (to break, to annul), from Latin cassare or quassare (to shatter, to void). To cashier an officer was to break his commission, to shatter his military identity. The two words converged in English spelling by accident: the person at the cash box and the act of breaking a commission look identical on the page.

The retail cashier became a ubiquitous figure in the twentieth century. Department stores, supermarkets, banks — every point of sale had a cashier. The word was so ordinary that it carried no weight. In French, caissier remains gendered: caissier for men, caissière for women. In English, the word is gender-neutral but class-marked — a cashier earns minimum wage; a treasurer earns a salary; a comptroller earns a fortune. The job titles describe the same basic function at different social altitudes.

Self-checkout machines and automated payment systems are making the human cashier obsolete. Amazon Go stores opened in 2018 with no cashiers at all. The word is on its way to becoming historical — the person named for the money box disappearing along with the physical transaction. The box went digital. The cashier may follow.