casual
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈkaʒ(uː)əl/
ipa: /ˈkaʒjuːəl/
ipa: /ˈkazjuːəl/
ipa: /ˈkæʒ(u)əl/
ipa: /ˈkæʒwəl/
ipa: /ˈkɛʒ(ʉː)əl/
ipa: /-uːæl/
Forms: form: casuals
form: casuall
form: cazh
Etymology: From Middle French casuel, from Late Latin cāsuālis (“happening by chance”), from Latin cāsus (“event”) (English case), from cadere (“to fall”) (whence English cadence).
Senses: glosses: A worker who is only working for a company occasionally, not as its permanent employee.
examples: text: Of the scavagers proper there are, as in all classes of unskilled labour, that is to say, of labour which requires no previous apprenticeship, and to which any one can “turn his hand” on an emergency, two distinct orders of workmen, “the regulars and casuals” to adopt the trade terms; that is to say, the labourers consist of those who have been many years at the trade, constantly employed at it, and those who have but recently taken to it as a means of obtaining a subsistence after their ordinary resources have failed.
ref: 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861:
glosses: A worker who is doing a particular type of job temporarily, not as a lifetime career.
glosses: A soldier temporarily at a place of duty, usually en route to another place of duty.
examples: text: At 15, he became a casual: one of the label-wearing, wedge-flicking, swaggering hooligan peacock boys who dominated the north-west when I was growing up. Casuals were working-class lads (called Perry boys in Manchester) who loved football, fighting and brilliant sportswear.
ref: 2019 September 14, Miranda Sawyer, “Mark Leckey: ‘There has to be a belief that art has this power, this charisma'”, in The Guardian:
synonyms: word: dresser#English:_undercover football hooligan
word: Perry boy
english: Manchester
translation: Manchester
glosses: A member of a group of football hooligans who wear expensive designer clothing to avoid police attention; see casual (subculture).
examples: text: During the great prevalence of vagrancy, the cost of the sick was far greater than the expense of relief. In the quarter ending June 1848, no less than 322 casuals were under medical treatment, either in the workhouse of the Wandsworth and Clapham union or at the London Fever Hospital.
ref: 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861:
glosses: One who receives relief for a night in a parish to which he or she does not belong; a vagrant in the casual ward.
examples: text: The devs dumbed the game down so the casuals could enjoy it.
topics: video-games
glosses: A player of casual games.
examples: text: Casuals outnumbered regulars in the art-house audience two to one.
ref: 1972, Lee C. Garrison, "The Needs of Motion Picture Audiences", California Management Review, Volume 15, Issue 2, Winter 1972, page 149
text: Most often, when a series is marketed toward casuals, the loyals feel that their interests and needs are not being met.
ref: 2010, Jennifer Gillan, Television and New Media: Must-Click TV, page 16:
text: Treating a gay relationship as a puzzle that must be pursued by the clever viewers and hidden from “casuals” until a narrative reveal at the eleventh hour seems antithetical to the idea of normalized representation that TJLCers claim as the main reason they want Johnlock to be canon, […]
ref: 2018, E. J. Nielsen, “The Gay Elephant Meta in the Room: Sherlock and the Johnlock Conspiracy”, in Joseph Brennan, editor, Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans Through Homoerotic Possibilities, page 91:
topics: lifestyle
glosses: A person whose engagement with media is relaxed or superficial.
examples: text: I was a boy in 1922 or 1923, when buses first started to run between the village and the town; there were tramps, casuals as they were called; the whole pattern of my boyhood was knit into a very loaded atmosphere of human character.
ref: 1983, Reg Butler, Reg Butler, London: Tate Gallery London, page 14:
glosses: A tramp.
examples: text: Next spring you’ll see more women than ever wearing “casuals” and “flats,” the shoes with the wedge heels or no heels at all.
ref: 1948 December, “Shoes: Competition Is Back”, in Kiplinger Magazine, page 47, column 2:
text: In girls wearing casuals, ugly hypertrophied skin over the heels was frequently noted, probably due to the loose shoe moving as they walked.
ref: 1959, The Medical Officer, page 158:
text: Like his friends, he is wearing casuals, ideal for lounging around crypts.
ref: 1967, Kenneth Tynan, Tynan Right & Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, page 65:
text: He and I were wearing casuals[…]
ref: 1984, William Golding, The Paper Men, page 71:
glosses: Shoes suitable for everyday use, as opposed to more formal footwear.
Related terms: casualty
case