case
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /keɪs/
rhymes: -eɪs
Forms: form: cases
Etymology: 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”).
Senses: examples: text: For a change, in this case, he was telling the truth.
text: It is not the case that every unfamiliar phrase is an idiom.
text: In case of fire, break glass. [sign on fire extinguisher holder in public space]
text: 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.
ref: 2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:
glosses: An actual event, situation, or fact.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: Ne wist he how to turne, nor to what place: / Was never wretched man in such a wofull cace.
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 1726, Nathan Bailey, John Worlidge, Dictionarium Rusticum, Urbanicum & Botanicum:
glosses: A given condition or state.
examples: text: It was one of the detective's easiest cases.
text: Social workers should work on a maximum of forty active cases.
text: The doctor told us of an interesting case he had treated that morning.
text: 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.
ref: 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:
text: 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.
ref: 1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 4, in Pulling the Strings:
glosses: A piece of work, specifically defined within a profession; the set of tasks involved in addressing the situation of a specific person or event.
examples: text: The teaching consists of theory lessons and case studies.
text: He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record.
ref: 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:
topics: academia
scholarly
sciences
glosses: An instance or event as a topic of study.
examples: text: “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. […]”
ref: 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:
topics: law
glosses: A legal proceeding; a lawsuit or prosecution.
examples: text: The accusative case most commonly indicates a direct object.
text: Latin has six cases, and remnants of a seventh.
text: 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]
ref: 1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 6, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 292:
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: A specific inflection of a word (particularly a noun, pronoun, or adjective) depending on its function in the sentence.
examples: text: Jane has been studying case in Caucasian languages.
text: Latin is a language that employs case.
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: Grammatical cases and their meanings taken either as a topic in general or within a specific language.
examples: text: There were another five cases reported overnight.
text: 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.
ref: 2013, Gillian Russell, Delia Graff Fara, Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language, page 144:
topics: medicine
sciences
antonyms: noncase
coordinate_terms: patient#Noun
glosses: An instance of a specific condition or set of symptoms.
examples: text: Place a break statement at the end of every case to prevent case fall-through.
ref: 2004, Rick Miller, C++ for Artists:
text: Execution does not automatically stop at the next case.
ref: 2011, Stephen Prata, C++ Primer Plus, page 275:
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
glosses: A section of code representing one of the actions of a conditional switch.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1867, The Young Ladies' Journal, page 467:
text: 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.
ref: 1876, The New York Drama, volumes 1-2, page 1:
glosses: A love affair.
Synonyms: befall
grammatical case
Hyponyms: court case
Derived terms: 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
edge case
federal case
flight case
Frankfurt case
get off someone's case
get on someone's case
Gettier case
gone case
hard case
hard cases make bad law
in case
index case
intercase
intracase
I rest my case
just in case
landmark case
leading case
lexicase
limit case
long case
make a case
make a case for
make a federal case out of something
make the case for
megacase
mental case
mixed case
multicase
noncase
not the case
nutcase
on a case-by-case basis
on the case
open and shut case
press one's case
privative case
put case
put the case
reserved case
rest one's case
sad case
smear case
space case
special case
stretcher case
subcase
test case
textbook case
tough case
trespass on the case
use case
whatever the case may be
worse-case
worst-case
worst-case scenario
worst case scenario