• IPA^(key): /keɪs/

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

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• Rhymes: -eɪs
• Hyphenation: case

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”).

case (plural cases)

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]

   • 2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

     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.

2. (now rare) A given condition or state.
   • 1586, William Warner, “The Fourth Booke. Chapter XXXVI.”, in Albions England. Or Historicall Map of the Same Island: […], London: […] George Robinson [and R. Ward] for Thomas Cadman, […], →OCLC, page 174:

     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.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Ne wist he how to turne, nor to what place: / Was never wretched man in such a wofull cace.

   • 1726, Nathan Bailey, John Worlidge, Dictionarium Rusticum, Urbanicum & Botanicum:

     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 piece of work, specifically defined within a profession; the set of tasks involved in addressing the situation of a specific person or event.

   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.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     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.

   • 1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 4, in Pulling the Strings:

     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.

4. (academia) An instance or event as a topic of study.

   The teaching consists of theory lessons and case studies.

   • 2012 March-April, John T. Jost, “Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)?”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 162:

     He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record.

6. (law) A legal proceeding; a lawsuit or prosecution.
   • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tremarn Case”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

     “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. […] ”

   • 2025 November 20, Simmone Shah, “Ukraine to Claim $44bn in Climate Damages From Russia. Why War Is So Bad For Emissions”, in TIME‎^[1]:

     As the conflict has dragged on, prosecutors in Ukraine are now pursuing 247 cases of environmental war crimes against Russia in Ukrainian courts and the International Criminal Court, according to reporting published in April by the New York Times.

8. (grammar) 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.

   • 1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 6, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 292:

     Now, the Subject of either an indicative or a subjunctive Clause is always assigned Nominative case, as we see from:
     (16) (a)   I know [that they/*them/*their leave for Hawaii tomorrow]
     (16) (b)   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:
     (17)   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.
     (18)   I don't like the idea of [them/their/*they leaving for Hawaii tomorrow]

9. (grammar, uncountable) 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.

11. (medicine) An instance of a specific condition or set of symptoms.

    Antonym: noncase

    Hyponym: index case

    Coordinate term: patient

    There were another five cases reported overnight.

    • 2013, Gillian Russell, Delia Graff Fara, Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language, page 144:

      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.

12. (programming) A section of code representing one of the actions of a conditional switch.
    • 2004, Rick Miller, C++ for Artists:

      Place a break statement at the end of every case to prevent case fall-through.

    • 2011, Stephen Prata, C++ Primer Plus, page 275:

      Execution does not automatically stop at the next case.

13. (archaic) A love affair.
    • 1867, The Young Ladies' Journal, page 467:

      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.

    • 1876, The New York Drama, volumes 1-2, page 1:

      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.

• In medicine, in precise and respectful usage, a case is not a patient and a patient is not a case, whereas a patient has a case. In loose usage, however, the words are often treated synonymously.

• court case
• See also Thesaurus:grammatical case

• → Swedish: case n

case (third-person singular simple present cases, present participle casing, simple past and past participle cased)

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To propose hypothetical cases.
   • 1692, Roger L’Estrange, “ (please specify the fable number.) (please specify the name of the fable.)”, in Fables, of Æsop and Other Eminent Mythologists: […], London: […] R[ichard] Sare, […], →OCLC:

     Casing upon the Matter.

• Appendix:Grammatical cases

• (love affair): John Camden Hotten (1873), The Slang Dictionary
• case on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

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.

case (plural cases)

2. A box that contains or can contain a number of identical items of manufacture.
3. A box, sheath, or covering generally.

   a case for spectacles; the case of a watch

4. A piece of luggage that can be used to transport an apparatus such as a sewing machine.
5. An enclosing frame or casing.

   a door case; a window case

6. A suitcase.
7. A piece of furniture, constructed partially of transparent glass or plastic, within which items can be displayed.
8. The outer covering or framework of a piece of apparatus such as a computer.
9. (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).
10. (typography, by extension) The nature of a piece of alphabetic type, whether a “capital” (upper case) or “small” (lower case) letter.
11. (poker slang) Four of a kind.
12. (US) A unit of liquid measure used to measure sales in the beverage industry, equivalent to 192 fluid ounces.
13. (mining) A small fissure which admits water into the workings.^[1]
14. A thin layer of harder metal on the surface of an object whose deeper metal is allowed to remain soft.
15. A cardboard box that holds (usually 24) beer bottles or cans.

    Synonym: carton

    a single case of Bud Light

16. (UK, slang, obsolete) A counterfeit crown (five-shilling coin).
    • 1859, Snowden's magistrates assistant, page 90:

      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.

case (not comparable)

1. (poker slang) The last remaining card of a particular rank.

   He drew the case eight!

   • 2006, David Apostolico, Lessons from the Professional Poker Tour, page 21:

     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.

• Weisenberg, Michael (2000) The Official Dictionary of Poker. MGI/Mike Caro University. →ISBN

case (third-person singular simple present cases, present participle casing, simple past and past participle cased)

1. (transitive) To place (an item or items of manufacture) into a box, as in preparation for shipment.
2. (transitive) To cover or protect with, or as if with, a case; to enclose.
   • 1855–1858, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Boston, Mass.: Phillips, Sampson, and Company, →OCLC:

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

3. (transitive, informal) To survey (a building or other location) surreptitiously, as in preparation for a robbery.
   • 1977, Michael Innes, The Gay Phoenix, →ISBN, page 116:

     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.

   • 2014, Amy Goodman, From COINTELPRO to Snowden, the FBI Burglars Speak Out After 43 Years of Silence (Part 2), Democracy Now!, January 8, 2014, 0:49 to 0:57:

     Bonnie worked as a daycare director. She helped case the FBI office by posing as a college student interested in becoming an FBI agent.

• Weisenberg, Michael (2000) The Official Dictionary of Poker. MGI/Mike Caro University. →ISBN

• “case”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• case in Britannica Dictionary
• case in Macmillan Collocations Dictionary
• case in Sentence collocations by Cambridge Dictionary
• case in Ozdic collocation dictionary
• case in WordReference English Collocations

• ACEs, ASCE, Aces, Ceas, ESCA, SCEA, aces, aesc, esca, æsc

• IPA^(key): /ħaˈse/ [ħʌˈsɛ]
• Hyphenation: ca‧se

casé (frequentative casamcasé, passive cassiimé)

1. (transitive) wave at
2. (transitive) strike, hit

• E. M. Parker; R. J. Hayward (1985), “case”, in An Afar-English-French dictionary (with Grammatical Notes in English), University of London, →ISBN
• Mohamed Hassan Kamil (2015), L’afar: description grammaticale d’une langue couchitique (Djibouti, Erythrée et Ethiopie)‎^[2], Paris: Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (doctoral thesis), page 263

case

1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive of casar

• 畸士, K士

From English case.

case (Hong Kong Cantonese)

1. case (container; box) (Classifier: 個／个 c)
2. case (situation) (Classifier: 個／个 c)
3. case (piece of work) (Classifier: 個／个 c)
4. case (piece of work) (when associated with a file detailing the case, e.g. applications or reports) (Classifier: 隻／只 c)
5. the person or client associated with such case (Classifier: 隻／只 c)
6. case (legal proceeding) (Classifier: 單／单 c; 隻／只 c)
   • 1991, Fight Back to School:

     嘩haai2，搞緊咩大case呀？ [Cantonese, trad.]
     哗haai2，搞紧咩大case呀？ [Cantonese, simp.]

     waa³ haai², gaau² gan² me¹ daai⁶ kei¹ si² aa³? [Jyutping]

     Huh! What sort of big case are they [the police] working on?

Borrowed from Latin casa, in the sense of "hut, cabin". The other senses are a semantic loan from Spanish casa. Doublet of chez, which was inherited.

• IPA^(key): /kaz/ ~ /kɑz/

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

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• Audio (Canada (Shawinigan)):

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• Audio (France):

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• Audio (France (Vosges)):

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• Audio (France (Lyon)):

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• Homophone: cases

case f (plural cases)

1. (archaic, rare or regional) hut, cabin, shack
2. box (on form)
3. square (on board game)

• avoir une case en moins
• case départ
• case à cocher
• manquer une case
• retour à la case départ

• Saint Dominican Creole French: caze
  • Haitian Creole: kay

• “case”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• à sec

Attested since the 15th century (quasy), inherited from Latin quasi (“as if”).

• caixe

• IPA^(key): [ˈkɑsɪ]

case

1. almost

• Barreiro, Xavier Varela; Guinovart, Xavier Gómez (2006–2018), “quasy”, in Corpus Xelmírez: corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval [Corpus Xelmírez: linguistic corpus of Medieval Galicia] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, editor (2006–2013), “case”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “case”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Rosario Álvarez Blanco, editor (2014–2024), “case”, in Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega, →ISSN

case

1. inflection of casar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

• IPA^(key): /ˈka.ze/, (traditional) /ˈka.se/
• Rhymes: -aze, (traditional) -ase
• Hyphenation: cà‧se

case f

1. plural of casa

• asce, esca, seca

• IPA^(key): /ˈt͡sa.sɛ/
• Rhymes: -asɛ
• Syllabification: ca‧se

case

1. nominative/accusative plural of cas

From Old Dutch *kāsi, from late Proto-West Germanic *kāsī, borrowed from Latin cāseus.

câse m or n

1. cheese

• kese (eastern)

• Dutch: kaas
  • Afrikaans: kaas
    • → Sotho: kase
    • → Tswana: kase
  • Berbice Creole Dutch: kasi
  • Jersey Dutch: kääs
  • Negerhollands: kaas, kaes
  • → Aukan: kasi
  • → Papiamentu: keshi (from the diminutive)
  • → Peranakan Indonesian: kas
  • → Sranan Tongo: kasi
    • → Caribbean Hindustani: kási
    • → Saramaccan: kási
• Limburgish: kieës, kees

• “case”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929), “case (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN, page I

• caas, casse

From Old Northern French casse, from Latin capsa.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkaːs(ə)/, /ˈkas(ə)/

case (plural cases)

1. box, chest, casket, case

• English: case
• Yola: kaase
• → Irish: cás

• “cā̆se, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

English case, from Latin cāsus. Doublet of kasus.

• IPA^(key): /kɛɪ̯s/, /kæɪ̯s/

case m or n (definite singular casen or caset, indefinite plural caser, definite plural casene)

1. a case study; a case as used in a case study

• “case” in The Bokmål Dictionary.
• “case_2” in Det Norske Akademis ordbok (NAOB).

English case, from Latin cāsus. Doublet of kasus.

• IPA^(key): /kɛɪ̯s/, /kæɪ̯s/

case m or n (definite singular casen or caset, indefinite plural casar or case, definite plural casane or casa)

1. a case study; a case as used in a case study

   Synonyms: døme, eksempel

• “case” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

case oblique singular, m (oblique plural cases, nominative singular cases, nominative plural case)

1. (grammar) case

Portuguese Wikipedia has an article on:

case

Wikipedia ^pt

Unadapted borrowing from English case. Doublet of caixa.

• Rhymes: -ejzi

case m or f same meaning (plural cases)

1. (Brazil) a phone case

   Synonym: capinha

Pseudo-anglicism, derived from case study. Doublet of caso.

• Rhymes: -ejzi

case m (plural cases)

2. (Brazil, marketing) a marketing case study

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

• Rhymes: -azi, -azɨ
• Hyphenation: ca‧se

case

1. inflection of casar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

• “case”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2025

case

1. inflection of casă:
   1. plural
   2. genitive/dative singular

• IPA^(key): /ˈkase/ [ˈka.se]
• Rhymes: -ase
• Syllabification: ca‧se

case

1. inflection of casar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative