What does cachou mean?
A cachou is a small lozenge or tablet designed to sweeten the breath, typically flavored with licorice or fruit and often containing catechu, an astringent plant extract. Carried in tiny boxes, tins, or vials, cachous were a staple of polite society from the eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries, allowing gentlemen and ladies alike to refresh their mouths discreetly before conversation or a social engagement. The word entered English from French in the seventeenth century, ultimately tracing back through Malay to the same source as 'catechu.' Although largely superseded by the modern breath mint, the cachou survives as a charmingly antiquated term — still current in France, where it names familiar licorice-flavored pastilles — and it endures in period fiction and historical writing as a marker of bygone etiquette. For readers today, encountering 'cachou' is a small window into the grooming habits and courtesies of another era.
nounA small lozenge or pastille, typically made with licorice or fruit extracts and often containing a breath-freshening agent such as catechu, chewed to sweeten the breath. Cachous are sold in tiny boxes or vials and were once carried in pockets or purses as a portable breath freshener.
- A small lozenge or tablet chewed to sweeten the breath.
- The substance (often catechu) used as the active ingredient in such lozenges.
"Before stepping into the interview, she discreetly popped a cachou to freshen her breath."
"He offered her a cachou from the silver box on the hall table."
"The old apothecary still stocked tin after tin of cachou lozenges behind the counter."
The standard plural simply adds -s; it refers to multiple individual lozenges rather than varieties.
"The shopkeeper arranged rows of little tins filled with cachous along the counter."
Victorian ladies never left home without their little box of cachous — the original pocket-sized breath freshener, centuries before the breath mint.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cachou
The word 'cachou' was borrowed into English from French in the early seventeenth century. It derives from the Malay word 'kacu,' which referred to catechu, the astringent extract of certain acacia species used both medicinally and in the manufacture of breath-freshening tablets. The same root gives English 'catechu' and related terms like 'cutch' and 'catechol,' making these words true cognates sharing the Malay source rather than mere derivatives.
How cachou is actually used
Cachou is now largely archaic or historical in everyday English; it survives mainly in older texts and in French-speaking regions, where 'cachou' remains a familiar name for small licorice-flavored sweets. The word carries a faintly vintage or quaint connotation in modern usage.
Easily confused with cachou
A cashew is an edible kidney-shaped nut, while a cachou is a small breath-freshening lozenge; the two words are near-homophones but entirely unrelated in meaning.
Catechu is the astringent extract of the acacia tree used in tanning and dyeing (and as an ingredient in cachous), not the finished lozenge itself.