Etimology
From Middle English cas, from Old French cas (“an event”), from Latin cāsus (“a falling, a fall; accident, event, occurrence; occasion, opportunity; noun case”), perfect passive participle of cadō (“to fall, to drop”).
noun
case (plural cases)
An actual event, situation, or fact.
(now rare) A given condition or state.
A piece of work, specifically defined within a profession; the set of tasks involved in addressing the situation of a specific person or event.
(academia) An instance or event as a topic of study.
(law) A legal proceeding; a lawsuit or prosecution.
(grammar) A specific inflection of a word (particularly a noun, pronoun, or adjective) depending on its function in the sentence.
(grammar, uncountable) Grammatical cases and their meanings taken either as a topic in general or within a specific language.
(medicine) An instance of a specific condition or set of symptoms.
(programming) A section of code representing one of the actions of a conditional switch.
(archaic) A love affair.
Examples
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]
Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete.
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.
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.
We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect of so large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke.
The case was that of a murder. It had an element of mystery about it, however, which was puzzling the authorities. A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff. These properties were known to have belonged to a toddy drawer. He had disappeared.
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.
“Two or three months more went by ; the public were eagerly awaiting the arrival of this semi-exotic claimant to an English peerage, and sensations, surpassing those of the Tichbourne case, were looked forward to with palpitating interest. […] ”
The accusative case canonically indicates a direct object. Latin has six cases, and remnants of a seventh.
Now, the Subject of either an indicative or a subjunctive Clause is always assigned Nominative case, as we see from: I know [that they/*them/*their leave for Hawaii tomorrow] I demand [that they/*them/*their leave for Hawaii tomorrow]By contrast, the Subject of an infinitive Clause is assigned Objective case, as we see from: I want [them/*they/*their to leave for Hawaii tomorrow]And the Subject of a gerund Clause is assigned either Objective or Genitive case: cf. I don't like the idea of [them/their/*they leaving for Hawaii tomorrow]
Jane has been studying case in Caucasian languages. Latin is a language that employs case.
There were another five cases reported overnight.
Place a break statement at the end of every case to prevent case fall-through.
Execution does not automatically stop at the next case.
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.
Related words
synonyms
befall
grammatical case
hyponyms
court case
See also Thesaurus:grammatical case
verb
case (third-person singular simple present cases, present participle casing, simple past and past participle cased)
(obsolete, intransitive) To propose hypothetical cases.
Examples
Casing upon the Matter.
Etimology
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.
noun
case (plural cases)
A box that contains or can contain a number of identical items of manufacture.
A box, sheath, or covering generally.
A piece of luggage that can be used to transport an apparatus such as a sewing machine.
An enclosing frame or casing.
A suitcase.
A piece of furniture, constructed partially of transparent glass or plastic, within which items can be displayed.
The outer covering or framework of a piece of apparatus such as a computer.
(printing, historical) 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).
(typography, by extension) The nature of a piece of alphabetic type, whether a “capital” (upper case) or “small” (lower case) letter.
(poker slang) Four of a kind.
(US) A unit of liquid measure used to measure sales in the beverage industry, equivalent to 192 fluid ounces.
(mining) A small fissure which admits water into the workings.
A thin layer of harder metal on the surface of an object whose deeper metal is allowed to remain soft.
A cardboard box that holds (usually 24) beer bottles or cans.
(UK, slang, obsolete) A counterfeit crown (five-shilling coin).
Examples
a case for spectacles; the case of a watch
a door case; a window case
Synonym: carton
a single case of Bud Light
The price of a case from the smasher is about one shilling; an alderman about sixpence; a peg about threepence; a downer or sprat about twopence.
adjective
case (not comparable)
(poker slang) The last remaining card of a particular rank.
Examples
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.
verb
case (third-person singular simple present cases, present participle casing, simple past and past participle cased)
(transitive) To place (an item or items of manufacture) into a box, as in preparation for shipment.
(transitive) To cover or protect with, or as if with, a case; to enclose.
(transitive, informal) To survey (a building or other location) surreptitiously, as in preparation for a robbery.
Examples
The man who, cased in steel, had passed whole days and nights in the saddle.
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.