cacher

Cacher is a French verb meaning to hide or conceal something from someone. It is used with a direct object to indicate hiding a physical object, information, or other things. The reflexive form se cacher means to hide oneself. In everyday usage, cacher covers both tangible hiding and metaphorical concealment, such as cacher des secrets or cacher des preuves.

Grammatical overview: cacher is a regular -er verb. In the present tense the forms are: je cache, tu caches, il/elle cache, nous cachons, vous cachez, ils/elles cachent. It follows standard -er verb conjugation patterns for past, future, and conditional tenses. The passé composé is formed with the auxiliary avoir and the past participle caché. The feminine form is cachée and the plural forms are cachés (masculine) or cachées (feminine). The imperative forms are: cache, cachons, et cachez. The verb is often used with prepositions to specify what is hidden from whom, as in cacher quelque chose à quelqu’un.

In English contexts, cacher is not a common term. The equivalent English verb is to cache, meaning to store data for quicker access, or to hide in a general sense. In computing, caching refers to the practice of saving copies of data to speed up future requests; the related noun cache is widely used across languages. In French, the same concept is expressed with cacher in the sense of hiding, and caching in English remains the technical term for data storage optimization.

In some multilingual communities, particularly in geocaching circles, the person who hides a cache is sometimes informally described as the cacher, though English usage more commonly prefers cache owner or hider. See also: cache, caché, se cacher.