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case

noun
/keɪs/

Etymology

From Middle English case, from Old Northern French casse (compare Old French chasse (“box, chest, case”)), from Latin capsa (“box, bookcase”), from capiō (“to take, seize, hold”). Doublet of cash, chase, and chasse. Compare Spanish caja, Asturian caxa, Portuguese caixa.

  1. derived from cāsus — “a falling, a fall; accident, event, occurrence; occasion, opportunity; noun case”
  2. derived from cas — “an event”
  3. inherited from cas

Definitions

  1. An actual event, situation, or fact.

    • For a change, in this case, he was telling the truth.
    • It is not the case that every unfamiliar phrase is an idiom.
    • In case of fire, break glass. [sign on fire extinguisher holder in public space]

  2. A given condition or state.

    • Thus vvhilſt he hopt he hild her leaſt, ſo altereth the cace / VVith ſuch as ſhe, Ah ſuch it is to build on ſuch a face.
    • Ne wist he how to turne, nor to what place: / Was never wretched man in such a wofull cace.
    • Mares which are over-fat, hold with much difficulty; whereas those that are but in good case and plump, conceive with the greatest readiness and ease.

  3. A specific matter or piece of work, specifically defined within a profession, usually in…

    A specific matter or piece of work, specifically defined within a profession, usually in respect of a specific person and/or event; the set of tasks involved in addressing one such matter.

    • It was one of the detective's easiest cases.
    • Social workers should work on a maximum of forty active cases.
    • The doctor told us of an interesting case he had treated that morning.
  4. ›+ 32 more definitions

    1. An instance or event as a topic of study.

      • The teaching consists of theory lessons and case studies.
      • He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record.

    2. A legal proceeding

      A legal proceeding; a lawsuit or prosecution.

    3. A specific inflection of a word (particularly a noun, pronoun, or adjective) depending on…

      A specific inflection of a word (particularly a noun, pronoun, or adjective) depending on its function in the sentence.

      • The accusative case most commonly indicates a direct object.
      • Latin has six cases, and remnants of a seventh.

    4. Grammatical cases and their meanings taken either as a topic in general or within a…

      Grammatical cases and their meanings taken either as a topic in general or within a specific language.

      • Jane has been studying case in Caucasian languages.
      • Latin is a language that employs case.

    5. An instance of a specific condition or set of symptoms.

      • There were another five cases reported overnight.
      • We turn next to the puzzle of borderlineness: If Harry is intermediate between clear cases and clear noncases of baldness, “Is Harry bald?” seems to have no good, direct, answer.

    6. A section of code representing one of the actions of a conditional switch.

      • Place a break statement at the end of every case to prevent case fall-through.
      • Execution does not automatically stop at the next case.

    7. A love affair.

      • Poor fellow, just as I thought! It's a case with him, anybody can see that. He is thinking about Christine, for a certainty. Lovers always take to stargazing and moonlight dreaming — it's part of their complaint.
      • I thought it only an amourette when you told me. It was a fire — a conflagration; subdue it. I saw it was a case, and I advised you to try — dissipation.

    8. To propose hypothetical cases.

      • Casing upon the Matter.

    9. A box that contains or can contain a number of identical items of manufacture.

    10. A box, sheath, or covering generally.

      • a case for spectacles; the case of a watch

    11. A piece of luggage that can be used to transport an apparatus such as a sewing machine.

    12. An enclosing frame or casing.

      • a door case; a window case

    13. A suitcase.

    14. A piece of furniture, constructed partially of transparent glass or plastic, within which…

      A piece of furniture, constructed partially of transparent glass or plastic, within which items can be displayed.

    15. The outer covering or framework of a piece of apparatus such as a computer.

    16. A shallow tray divided into compartments or "boxes" for holding type, traditionally…

      A shallow tray divided into compartments or "boxes" for holding type, traditionally arranged in sets of two, the "upper case" (containing capitals, small capitals, accented) and "lower case" (small letters, figures, punctuation marks, quadrats, and spaces).

    17. The nature of a piece of alphabetic type, whether a “capital” (upper case) or “small”…

      The nature of a piece of alphabetic type, whether a “capital” (upper case) or “small” (lower case) letter.

    18. Four of a kind.

    19. A unit of liquid measure used to measure sales in the beverage industry, equivalent to…

      A unit of liquid measure used to measure sales in the beverage industry, equivalent to 192 fluid ounces.

    20. A small fissure which admits water into the workings.

    21. A thin layer of harder metal on the surface of an object whose deeper metal is allowed to…

      A thin layer of harder metal on the surface of an object whose deeper metal is allowed to remain soft.

    22. A cardboard box that holds (usually 24) beer bottles or cans.

      • a single case of Bud Light

    23. A counterfeit crown (five-shilling coin).

      • The price of a case (five shillings piece bad) from the smasher is about one shilling; an alderman (two and sixpence) about sixpence; a peg (shilling) about threepence; a downer or sprat (sixpence) about twopence.

    24. The last remaining card of a particular rank.

      • He drew the case eight!
      • If he did have a bigger ace, I still had at least six outs — the case ace, two nines, and three tens. I could also have more outs if he held anything less than A-K.

    25. To place (an item or items of manufacture) into a box, as in preparation for shipment.

    26. To cover or protect with, or as if with, a case

      To cover or protect with, or as if with, a case; to enclose.

      • The man who, cased in steel, had passed whole days and nights in the saddle.

    27. To survey (a building or other location) surreptitiously, as in preparation for a robbery.

      • You are in the grounds of Brockholes Abbey, a house into which a great deal of valuable property has just been moved. And your job is to case the joint for a break in.
      • Bonnie worked as a daycare director. She helped case the FBI office by posing as a college student interested in becoming an FBI agent.

    28. computer-aided software engineering.

    29. coatings, adhesives, sealants and elastomers.

    30. abstract feature of a noun phrase that determines its function in a sentence, such as a…

      abstract feature of a noun phrase that determines its function in a sentence, such as a grammatical case and a position.

    31. A surname.

    32. A place name

      A place name:

The neighborhood

Derived

as the case may be, base case, best-case, be the case, build a case, casal, Case, caseback, casebook, case citation, case closed, case dependent, case ending, case fatality rate, casefic, case file, case grammar, case history, case-in-chief, case in point, case law, caseless, caselike, caseload, caseman, case of the Mondays, case presentation, case report, case reporter, case study, case-to-case, casewise, casework, caseworker, catch a case, charity case, cold case, countercase, daycase, despatch case · +65 more

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for case. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA