cast
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: käst
ipa: /kɑːst/
enpr: kăst
ipa: /kast/
enpr: kăst
ipa: /kæst/
note: New York, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore
enpr: /kɛəst/
homophone: caste
homophone: (in some non-rhotic accents) karst
rhymes: -ɑːst
rhymes: -æst
Forms: form: casts
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Germanic *kas-
Proto-Germanic *kastōną
Old Norse kastabor.
Middle English casten
English cast
From Middle English casten, from Old Norse kasta (“to throw, cast, overturn”), from Proto-Germanic *kastōną (“to throw, cast”), of unknown origin.
Cognate with Scots cast (“to cast, throw”), Danish kaste (“to throw”), Swedish kasta (“to throw, cast, fling, toss, discard”), Icelandic kasta (“to pitch, toss”). In the sense of "flinging", displaced native warp.
The senses relating to broadcasting are based on that same term; compare -cast.
Senses: glosses: An act of throwing.
glosses: The number rolled on a die when it is thrown.
examples: text: I went out on the timber boom and made a few casts, but with little success.
ref: 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 152:
topics: fishing
hobbies
lifestyle
glosses: An instance of throwing out a fishing line.
examples: text: a cast of scatter'd dust
ref: 1697, Virgil, “The Fourth Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
glosses: Something which has been thrown, dispersed etc.
examples: text: The area near the stream was covered with little bubbly worm casts.
glosses: A small mass of earth "thrown off" or excreted by a worm.
examples: text: He’s in the cast of Oliver.
text: The cast was praised for a fine performance.
topics: art
arts
glosses: The collective group of actors performing a play or production together. Contrasted with crew.
examples: text: The men got into position for the cast, two at the ladle, two with long rods, all with heavy clothing.
glosses: The casting procedure.
examples: text: The cast would need a great deal of machining to become a recognizable finished part.
glosses: An object made in a mould.
examples: text: The doctor put a cast on the boy’s broken arm.
glosses: A supportive and immobilising device used to help mend broken bones.
examples: text: A plaster cast was made from his face.
glosses: The mould used to make cast objects.
examples: text: As when a cast of Faulcons make their flight / An an Herneshaw, that lyes aloft on wing […]
ref: 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
text: Louis XIV was keen, employing a total hawking personnel of 175 and adding a fourth cast of gyrfalcons to hunt hares in 1682 […].
ref: 2007, Tim Blanning, The Pursuit of Glory, Penguin, published 2013, page 395:
topics: falconry
hawking
hobbies
hunting
lifestyle
glosses: The number of hawks (or occasionally other birds) cast off at one time; a pair.
examples: text: The image of the affected eye is clearer and in consequence the diplopy more striking the less the cast of the eye; hence the double vision will be noticed by the patient before the misdirection of the eye attracts the attention of those about him.
ref: 1847, John Churchill, A manual of the principles and practice of ophthalmic medicine and surgery, p. 389, paragraph 1968
text: Arriving in Brittany, the Woodville exiles found a sallow young man, with dark hair curled in the shoulder-length fashion of the time and a penchant for expensively dyed black clothes, whose steady gaze was made more disconcerting by a cast in his left eye – such that while one eye looked at you, the other searched for you.
ref: 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 7:
glosses: A squint.
examples: text: Her features had a delicate cast to them.
text: Using a tungsten-balanced film outdoors results in a blue cast to the photo.
ref: 2004, Betsy Brill, Photojournalism: The Professional's Approach, page 240:
text: He stared down at his champagne glass with narrowed eyes and a hard cast to his mouth.
ref: 2007, Lindsay Armstrong, The Australian's Housekeeper Bride, page 78:
glosses: Visual appearance.
examples: text: The cast of mind which prompted the plan was permanent, and in it are to be found both the strength and the weakness of Petty's character.
ref: 1894, Wilson Lloyd Bevan, Sir William Petty : A Study in English Economic Literature, page 40:
text: Young Wilcox’s rejoinder, which impressed my uncle enough to make him recall and record it verbatim, was of a fantastically poetic cast which must have typified his whole conversation, and which I have since found highly characteristic of him.
ref: 1928 February, H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”, in Farnsworth Wright, editor, Weird Tales: A Magazine of the Bizarre and Unusual, volume 11, number 2, Indianapolis, Ind.: Popular Fiction Pub. Co., →OCLC, pages 159–178 and 287:
text: I have read all her articles and come to admire both her elegant turn of phrase and the noble cast of mind which inspires it; but never, I confess, did I look to see beauty and wit so perfectly united.
ref: 1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial, published 2007, page 330:
glosses: The form of one's thoughts, mind etc.
examples: text: The brahmin's cast is higher than any other cast.
ref: 1821, Report of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, volumes 12-16, page 160:
glosses: Obsolete form of caste (“hereditary social class of South Asia”).
glosses: Animal and insect remains which have been regurgitated by a bird.
glosses: A group of crabs.
examples: text: Cast is the measurement of the central line of the gun and the stock’s butt. If the butt is tilted slightly to the left of the central line, it’s called “cast on.” If the butt is tilted slightly to the right of the central line, it’s called “cast off.”
ref: Savage Arms, "THE PERFECT SHOTGUN FIT," 2021
topics: engineering
firearms
government
military
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
politics
tools
war
weaponry
glosses: The measurement of the angle of a shotgun stock from a top-view center line, used to align the shotgun to the shooter's eye.
hyponyms: last cast
glosses: A chance or attempt at something.
examples: text: The superiors rode în a spring-van, and the rest in the wagon, while I walked the whole distance. None of them had the civility to give me a cast forward on either vehicle, […]
ref: 1852, Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, volumes 17-18, page 398:
text: boatman, just give us a cast over to the other side of the water.
ref: 1882, Sir James William Redhouse, The Turkish Vade-Mecum of Ottoman Colloquial Language, page 328:
glosses: Assistance given by transporting a person or lightening their labour.
Derived terms: aftercast
after-cast
braincast
cast fossil
castful
castless
castling
castmate
castmember
cast net
cast of thousands
cast steel
cast stone
castworthy
colorcast
fancast
fan cast
flush cast
forecast
hydrocast
last cast
lifecast
megacast
miscast
molecast
offcast
open-cast
plaster cast
precast
recast
red blood cell cast
renal cast
runecast
sidecast
spearcast
spincast
starcast
stonecast
sulfur cast
sulphur cast
surfcast
undercast
urinary cast
wormcast
worm cast