Etymology

cha-ching

Today it means: Score!; wow!; said to celebrate something that has made or will make a large amount of money. Full definition →

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The story

Onomatopoeic, imitative of the sound of a mechanical cash register when an amount is rung up. Popularized by the movie Wayne's World (1992) and by an advertisement in 1992 featuring Seth Green. The spoken term is also, in the US, a trademarked sound of Checkers Drive-In Restaurants, Inc.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.