cha-ching

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Onomatopoeia, imitative of the sound of a mechanical cash register when an amount is rung up. Popularized by the 1992 movie Wayne's World and by a 1992 advertisement featuring Seth Green.[1]
The spoken term is also, in the US, a trademarked sound of Rally's Hamburgers, Inc.[2]

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /tʃəˈtʃɪŋ/
  • (file)

Interjection

cha-ching

  1. (US, Canada, Australia) Score!; wow!; said to celebrate something that has made or will make lots of money.
    • 1998, Media Foundation, chapter I, in Adbusters, volume 6, page 49:
      Cha-ching! More profit, more jobs.

Noun

cha-ching (plural cha-chings)

  1. Money, cash.
    • 2005, Lee Mylne, advertisement, Frommer′s Portable Australia′s Great Barrier Reef, page 207,
      They find the best offerings on Travelocity. For very little cha-ching.
    • 2011, Sylvie Hogg, Frommer′s Italian Islands, unnumbered page,
      [] but the majority of hotels see guests′ phone calls as a major cha-ching opportunity and charge ridiculously inflated rates.

Verb

cha-ching (third-person singular simple present cha-chings, present participle cha-chinging, simple past and past participle cha-chinged)

  1. To make a cash register or slot machine noise.
    • 2011, Catherine Coulter, Split Second, unnumbered page,
      The young guy bought the woman a refill of the same fine chardonnay that made her dad′s cash register cha-ching with pleasure.
  2. To make the noise of coins falling.

References

  1. "biography of Seth Green" on IMDB
  2. 2005, Johnny Acton, The Ideas Companion: Crafty Copyrights, Tricky Trademarks and Peerless Patents, page 138.
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