case

A box that contains or can contain a number of identical items of manufacture.

Adjective

  1. The last remaining card of a particular rank.
    • 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. - 2006, David Apostolico, Lessons from the...

Origin

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.

Noun Entry 2

  1. A box that contains or can contain a number of identical items of manufacture.
  2. A box, sheath, or covering generally.
    • a case for spectacles; the case of a watch
  3. A piece of luggage that can be used to transport an apparatus such as a sewing machine.
  4. An enclosing frame or casing.
    • a door case; a window case
  5. A suitcase.
  6. A piece of furniture, constructed partially of transparent glass or plastic, within which items can be displayed.
  7. The outer covering or framework of a piece of apparatus such as a computer.
  8. 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).
  9. The nature of a piece of alphabetic type, whether a “capital” (upper case) or “small” (lower case) letter.
  10. Four of a kind.
  11. A unit of liquid measure used to measure sales in the beverage industry, equivalent to 192 fluid ounces.
  12. A small fissure which admits water into the workings.

Forms

cases

Derived

alternating case attaché case basket case bookcase braincase briefcase burial case business case camel case capcase cardcase cartridge case casal case badge casebearer casebearing casebound case clock case fan case folding case fraction caseful case harden caseharden

Noun Entry 3

  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]
  2. A given condition or state.
    • 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. - 1586, William Warner, “The Fourth Booke. Chapter XXXVI.”, in Albions England. Or Historicall Map...
    • Ne wist he how to turne, nor to what place: / Was never wretched man in such a wofull cace. - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
    • 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. - 1726, Nathan Bailey, John Worlidge, Dictionarium Rusticum,...
  3. A specific matter or piece of work, specifically defined within a profession, usually in respect of a specific person and/or event; the set of tasks involved in addressing one such matter.
    • 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.
  4. An instance or event as a topic of study.
    • 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. - 2012 March-April, John T. Jost, “Social Justice: Is It in Our...
  5. A legal proceeding; a lawsuit or prosecution.
    • “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...
    • 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...
  6. 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.
    • 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...
  7. 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.
  8. An instance of a specific condition or set of symptoms.
    • There were another five cases reported overnight.
    • 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. - 2013, Gillian Russell, Delia Graff...

    Antonyms: noncase

    Coordinate Terms: patient

  9. A section of code representing one of the actions of a conditional switch.
    • Place a break statement at the end of every case to prevent case fall-through. - 2004, Rick Miller, C++ for Artists:
    • Execution does not automatically stop at the next case. - 2011, Stephen Prata, C++ Primer Plus, page 275:
  10. A love affair.
    • 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. -...
    • 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. - 1876, The New York Drama, volumes 1-2, page 1:

Origin

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”).

Forms

cases

Synonyms

befall grammatical case

Hyponyms

court case

Derived

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

Verb Entry 4

  1. To place (an item or items of manufacture) into a box, as in preparation for shipment.
  2. To cover or protect with, or as if with, a case; to enclose.
    • The man who, cased in steel, had passed whole days and nights in the saddle. - 1855–1858, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, volume (please specify |volume=I to III),...
  3. To survey (a building or other location) surreptitiously, as in preparation for a robbery.
    • 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. - 1977, Michael Innes, The Gay Phoenix, →ISBN, page...
    • Bonnie worked as a daycare director. She helped case the FBI office by posing as a college student interested in becoming an FBI agent. - 2014, Amy Goodman, From COINTELPRO to Snowden, the FBI Burglars Speak Out After...

Forms

cases casing cased

Derived

case out case the deck case the joint case up casing nail casing shoe recase uncase

Verb intransitive, obsolete

  1. To propose hypothetical cases.
    • Casing upon the Matter. - 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, […],...

Forms

cases casing cased