Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An accident, especially one involving serious injury or loss of life.
  • noun One who is injured or killed in an accident.
  • noun One who is injured, killed, captured, or missing in action through engagement with an enemy:
  • noun One that is harmed or eliminated as a result of an action or circumstance.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun plural In the military service, the losses in a command due to any cause whatsoever, as resignation, discharge, dismissal, desertion, capture, wounds, or death.
  • noun Chance, or what happens by chance; accident; contingency.
  • noun An unfortunate chance or accident, especially one resulting in bodily injury or death; specifically, disability or loss of life in battle or military service from wounds, etc.: as, the casualties were very numerous.
  • noun In Scots law, an emolument due from a vassal to his superior, beyond the stated yearly duties, upon certain casual events.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun That which comes without design or without being foreseen; contingency.
  • noun Any injury of the body from accident; hence, death, or other misfortune, occasioned by an accident.
  • noun (Mil. & Naval) Numerical loss caused by death, wounds, discharge, or desertion.
  • noun A ward in a hospital devoted to the treatment of injuries received by accident.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete Chance nature; randomness.
  • noun Something that happens by chance, especially an unfortunate event; an accident, a disaster.
  • noun A person suffering from injuries or who has been killed due to an accident or through an act of violence.
  • noun UK The accident and emergency department of a hospital

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone injured or killed in an accident
  • noun an accident that causes someone to die
  • noun someone injured or killed or captured or missing in a military engagement
  • noun a decrease of military personnel or equipment

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English casuelte, from Old French, from Medieval Latin cāsuālitās, chance, accident, from Latin cāsuālis, fortuitous; see casual.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin casuālitas (compare casuality).

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Examples

Comments

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  • por casualidad in Spanish is "by chance."

    July 4, 2007