case

noun

1. 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]

   Conditioning would require exposition to any sentence before being uttered, which isn’t the case.

2. 2

   archaicA 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.

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

   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. 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.

   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.

4. 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.

5. 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 palpitating interest. […]”

   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.

6. 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.

7. 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. 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.

9. 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.

   Execution does not automatically stop at the next case.

10. 10

    archaicA 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.

verb

1. 1

   obsoleteTo propose hypothetical cases.

   Casing upon the Matter.

noun

1. 1

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

   When the ship reached Melbourne two days later we collared a couple of cases of apples from the hold and hid them in our bunks.

2. 2

   A box, sheath, or covering generally.

   a case for spectacles; the case of a watch

3. 3

   A piece of luggage that can be used to transport an apparatus such as a sewing machine.

4. 4

   An enclosing frame or casing.

   a door case; a window case

5. 5

   A suitcase.

6. 6

   A piece of furniture, constructed partially of transparent glass or plastic, within which items can be displayed.

7. 7

   The outer covering or framework of a piece of apparatus such as a computer.

8. 8

   historicalA 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. 9

   The nature of a piece of alphabetic type, whether a “capital” (upper case) or “small” (lower case) letter.

10. 10

    slangFour of a kind.

11. 11

    A unit of liquid measure used to measure sales in the beverage industry, equivalent to 192 fluid ounces.

12. 12

    A small fissure which admits water into the workings.

13. 13

    A thin layer of harder metal on the surface of an object whose deeper metal is allowed to remain soft.

14. 14

    A cardboard box that holds (usually 24) beer bottles or cans.

    a single case of Bud Light

15. 15

    obsoleteA counterfeit crown (five-shilling coin).

    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.

adjective

1. 1

   slangThe 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.

verb

1. 1

   To place (an item or items of manufacture) into a box, as in preparation for shipment.

2. 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.

3. 3

   informalTo 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.

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

Forms

plural

cases

past tense

cased

past participle

cased

present participle

casing

third person singular

cases