Definition of case

"case" in the noun sense

1. case, instance, example

an occurrence of something

"it was a case of bad judgment"

"another instance occurred yesterday"

"but there is always the famous example of the Smiths"

2. event, case

a special set of circumstances

"in that event, the first possibility is excluded"

"it may rain in which case the picnic will be canceled"

3. lawsuit, suit, case, cause, causa

a comprehensive term for any proceeding in a court of law whereby an individual seeks a legal remedy

"the family brought suit against the landlord"

4. case

the actual state of things

"that was not the case"

5. case

a portable container for carrying several objects

"the musicians left their instrument cases backstage"

6. case

a person requiring professional services

"a typical case was the suburban housewife described by a marriage counselor"

7. subject, case, guinea pig

a person who is subjected to experimental or other observational procedures someone who is an object of investigation

"the subjects for this investigation were selected randomly"

"the cases that we studied were drawn from two different communities"

8. case

a problem requiring investigation

"Perry Mason solved the case of the missing heir"

9. case

a statement of facts and reasons used to support an argument

"he stated his case clearly"

10. case, caseful

the quantity contained in a case

11. case, grammatical case

nouns or pronouns or adjectives (often marked by inflection) related in some way to other words in a sentence

12. case

a specific state of mind that is temporary

"a case of the jitters"

13. character, eccentric, type, case

a person of a specified kind (usually with many eccentricities

"a real character"

"a strange character"

"a friendly eccentric"

"the capable type"

"a mental case"

14. font, fount, typeface, face, case

a specific size and style of type within a type family

15. sheath, case

an enveloping structure or covering enclosing an animal or plant organ or part

16. shell, case, casing

the housing or outer covering of something

"the clock has a walnut case"

17. casing, case

the enclosing frame around a door or window opening

"the casings had rotted away and had to be replaced"

18. case, compositor's case, typesetter's case

printing) the receptacle in which a compositor has his type, which is divided into compartments for the different letters, spaces, or numbers

"for English, a compositor will ordinarily have two such cases, the upper case containing the capitals and the lower case containing the small letters"

19. case, pillowcase, slip, pillow slip

bed linen consisting of a cover for a pillow

"the burglar carried his loot in a pillowcase"

20. case, display case, showcase, vitrine

a glass container used to store and display items in a shop or museum or home

"case" in the verb sense

1. case

look over, usually with the intention to rob

"They men cased the housed"

2. encase, incase, case

enclose in, or as if in, a case

"my feet were encased in mud"

Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)

Princeton University "About WordNet®."
WordNet®. Princeton University. 2010.


View WordNet® License

Quotations for case

Prepared for either case.

Misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case. [ Cowper ]

And when a lady's in the case.
You know all other things give place. [ Gay ]

Haste is needful in a desperate case. [ William Shakespeare ]

No man should be judge in his own case. [ Law Maxim ]

Rome has spoken; the case is at an end.

Could he with reason murmur at his case
Himself sole author of his own disgrace? [ Cowper ]

The plainest case in many words entangling. [ Baillie ]

Standing in a case; position in an argument.

A noble cause doth ease much a grievous case. [ Sir Philip Sidney ]

The purse of the patient often protracts his case. [ Zimmermann ]

In a case of extreme emergency all things are common. [ Law ]

Having is in no case the fruit of lusting, but of living. [ Ed ]

He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. [ J. Stuart Mill ]

You may go to the court. A writ to remove a case to a higher court. [ Law Term ]

In the case of a very fascinating woman, sex is a challenge, not a defense. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]

Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason. [ Sir John Powell ]

Give to a wounded heart seclusion; consolation nor reason ever effected anything in such a case. [ Balzac ]

Brevity is the best recommendation of a speech, not only in the case of a senator, but in that, too, of an orator. [ Cicero ]

O form! how oft dost thou with thy case, thy habit, wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls to thy false seeming! [ William Shakespeare ]

Of some calamity we can have no relief but from God alone; and what would men do, in such a case, if it were not for God? [ Tillotson ]

O place! O form, how often dost thou with thy case, thy habit, wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls to thy false seeming! [ William Shakespeare ]

No man can make haste to be rich without going against the will of God, in which case it is the one frightful thing to be successful. [ George MacDonald ]

In the history of man it has been very generally the case that when evils have grown insufferable they have touched the point of cure. [ Chapin ]

The finest composition of human nature, as well as the finest china, may have a flaw in it, and this in either case is equally incurable. [ Fielding ]

I confess I should be glad if my pleasures were as pleasing to God as they are to me: in that case, I should often find matter for rejoicing. [ Marguerite de Valois ]

He who without discrimination affirms or denies, ranks lowest among the foolish ones, and this in either case, (i.e. in denying as well as affirming. [ Dante ]

Talking with a host is next best to talking with one's self.... He is wiser than to contradict his guest in any case; he lets him go on, he lets him travel. [ Thoreau ]

Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hands of the Angel of the Resurrection. [ Oliver Wendell Holmes ]

Truth may work mightily though in the hand of the sorriest instrument; in the case of the beautiful alone the casket constitutes the jewel (the vessel makes the content). [ Friedrich Schiller ]

There is but one case wherein a man may commend himself with good grace, and that is in commending virtue in another, especially if it be such a virtue whereunto himself pretendeth. [ Bacon ]

The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable, from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded, from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands. [ Burke ]

Some women have in the course of their lives a double engagement to sustain, equally difficult to break or to dissimulate: in one case the contract is wanting, in the other the heart. [ La Bruyere ]

The same conditions should be made in marriage that are made in the case of houses that one rents for a term of three, six, or nine years, with the privilege of becoming the purchaser if the house suits. [ Hegesippe Moreau ]

The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it: but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time. [ Burke ]

Gifts of rings by lovers have always been common; but how pleasant when the husband can look to the past, to the present, to the future, with feelings of love, honor, and duty, and not as is often the case with repentance. [ Miss L. E. Landon ]

Nothing more strikingly betrays the credulity of mankind than medicine. Quackery is a thing universal, and universally successful. In this case it becomes literally true that no imposition is too great for the credulity of men. [ Thoreau ]

He that has complex ideas, without particular names for them, would be in no better case than a book-seller who had volumes that lay unbound and without titles, which he could make known to others only by showing the loose sheets. [ Locke ]

To this end, nothing is to be more carefully consulted than plainness. In a lady's attire this is the single excellence: for to be what some people, call fine, is the same vice, in that case, as to be florid is in writing or speaking. [ Addison ]

I believe that everyone, sometime or other, dreams that he is reading papers, books, or letters; in which case the invention prompts so readily that the mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions for the composition of another. [ Addison ]

Ages of ignorance and simplicity are thought to be ages of purity. But the direct contrary I believe to be the case. Rude periods have that grossness of manners, which is as unfriendly to virtue as luxury itself. Men are less ashamed as they are less polished. [ Warton ]

If once a woman breaks through the barriers of decency, her case is desperate; and if she goes greater lengths than the men, and leaves the pale of propriety farther behind her, it is because she is aware that all return is prohibited, and by none so strongly as by her own sex. [ Colton ]

Do not worry; eat three square meals a day; say your prayers; be courteous to your creditors; keep your digestion good ; exercise ; go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things that your special case requires to make you happy, but, my friend, these, I reckon, will give you a good lift. [ Abraham Lincoln ]

He that abuses his own profession will not patiently bear with any one else who does so. And this is one of our most subtle operations of self-love. For when we abuse our own profession, we tacitly except ourselves; but when another abuses it, we are far from being certain that this is the case. [ Colton ]

There are circumstances of peculiar difficulty and danger, where a mediocrity of talent is the most fatal quantum that a man can possibly possess. Had Charles the First and Louis the Sixteenth been more wise or more weak, more firm or more yielding, in either case they had both of them saved their heads. [ Colton ]

As in the case of painters, who have undertaken to give us a beautiful and graceful figure, which may have some slight blemishes, we do not wish them to pass over such blemishes altogether, nor yet to mark them too prominently. The one would spoil the beauty, and the other destroy the likeness of the picture. [ Plutarch ]

It is curious for one who studies the action and reaction of national literature on each other, to see the humor of Swift and Sterne and Fielding, after filtering through Richter, reappear in Carlyle with a tinge of Germanism that makes it novel, alien, or even displeasing, as the case may be, to the English mind. [ Lowell ]

Beauty of form affects the mind, but then it must be understood that it is not the mere shell that we admire; we are attracted by the idea that this shell is only a beautiful case adjusted to the shape and value of a still more beautiful pearl within. The perfection of outward loveliness is the soul shining through its crystalline covering. [ Jane Porter ]

A wound in the friendship of young persons, as in the bark of young trees, may be so grown over as to leave no scar; the case is very different in regard to old persons and old timber. The reason of this may be accountable from the decline of the social passions, and the prevalence of spleen, suspicion, and rancor toward the latter part of life. [ Shenstone ]

Partially or Partly? The use of the adverb partially for partly, although it has the sanction of Webster, is obviously incorrect. The case in court has been partially heard. This is a common expression, the intended meaning of which is, that the case has been heard in part, or partly heard. Partially heard, denotes that it was heard in a biased or prejudiced manner. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]

The brute animals have all the same sensations of pain as human beings, and consequently endure as much pain when their body is hurt; but in their case the cruelty of torment is greater, because they have no mind to bear them up against their sufferings, and no hope to look forward to when enduring the last extreme pain. Their happiness consists entirely in present enjoyment. [ Chalmers ]

case in Scrabble®

The word case is playable in Scrabble®, no blanks required.

Scrabble® Letter Score: 6

Highest Scoring Scrabble® Play In The Letters case:

CASE
(27)
 

All Scrabble® Plays For The Word case

CASE
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CASE
(21)
CASE
(18)
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The 97 Highest Scoring Scrabble® Plays For Words Using The Letters In case

CASE
(27)
ACES
(21)
CASE
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ACES
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CASE
(18)
CASE
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CASE
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SAC
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SAC
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ACE
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CASE
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ACES
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CASE
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ACE
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SAC
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ACES
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SAC
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ACE
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CASE
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SAC
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ACE
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SEA
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SAC
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SEA
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CASE
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AS
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CASE
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AS
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AS
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SEA
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case in Words With Friends™

The word case is playable in Words With Friends™, no blanks required.

Words With Friends™ Letter Score: 7

Highest Scoring Words With Friends™ Play In The Letters case:

CASE
(45)
 

All Words With Friends™ Plays For The Word case

CASE
(45)
CASE
(27)
CASE
(22)
CASE
(21)
CASE
(21)
CASE
(21)
CASE
(21)
CASE
(17)
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(15)
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(14)
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CASE
(12)
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CASE
(11)
CASE
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(9)
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CASE
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(7)

The 106 Highest Scoring Words With Friends™ Plays Using The Letters In case

CASE
(45)
CASE
(27)
ACES
(27)
ACES
(27)
CASE
(22)
ACES
(21)
CASE
(21)
ACES
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ACES
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ACES
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CASE
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SAC
(18)
ACE
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SAC
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ACE
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ACE
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ACES
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CASE
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ACE
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SAC
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ACES
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SAC
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Word Growth involving case

Shorter words in case

as

Longer words containing case

bookcase bookcases

briefcase briefcases

caseate caseated

caseate caseates

caseating

caseation caseations

casebearer casebearers

casebook casebooks

cased discased

cased encased

cased incased

cased lowercased

cased showcased

cased slipcased

cased uncased

cased uppercased

caseful casefuls

caseic

casein azocasein

casein caseinate caseinates

casein caseinogen caseinogens

casein caseins

caseless

caseload caseloads

casemaker casemakers

casemaking

casement casements

casement encasement

cases bookcases

cases braincases

cases briefcases

cases crankcases

cases discases

cases doorcases

cases eggcases

cases encases pencases

cases flightcases

cases fracases

cases gearcases

cases headcases

cases helicases

cases lowercases

cases notecases

cases nutcases

cases pillowcases

cases seedcases

cases showcases

cases slipcases

cases staircases

cases suitcases

cases typecases

cases uppercases

cases uricases

cases watchcases

casework caseworker caseworkers

crankcase crankcases

decasecond decaseconds

discase discased

discase discases

doorcase doorcases

eggcase eggcases

encase encased

encase encasement

encase encases pencases

encase pencase pencases

flightcase flightcases

gearcase gearcases

headcase headcases

helicase helicases

incase braincase braincases

incase incased

lowercase lowercased

lowercase lowercases

mixedcase

notecase notecases

nutcase nutcases

pillowcase pillowcases

recase

seedcase seedcases

showcase showcased

showcase showcases

slipcase slipcased

slipcase slipcases

staircase staircases

subcase

suitcase suitcases

typecase typecases

uncase uncased

uppercase uppercased

uppercase uppercases

uricase uricases

watchcase watchcases