casualty

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English casuelte, also caswelte and casualte,^[2][3] borrowed from Medieval Latin cāsuālitās,^[4][5][6][7] reshaped on the model of penalty, royalty and fealty.^[4][5][6] The American Heritage Dictionary has it come through Old French,^[7] while Etymonline, Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com form it in English from Middle English casuel, casual, with the suffix -ty.^[3][8][9] The Medieval Latin noun is from Latin cāsuālis (“fortuitous”), from cāsus (“event, chance”).^[7][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Chance, luck, fate: before 1460, in Osbern Bokenham's Lives of Saints,^[2] before 1500 in the OED.^[4] Etymonline dates the word to the early 15th century, with the senses "chance, accident" and "incidental charge".^[3]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that from the earliest use the word was used especially of unfortunate events.^[3] A chance occurrence became a mishap or disaster, and before 1513 the word was used in the military for the losses of a body of men in the field, by death, desertion and other causes.^[4][3] Only in 1844, in Kinglake's Eothen, was an individual who is killed or wounded called a casualty.^[4][3] Johnson (1755) gave "accident; a thing happening by chance, not design" as the first sense, quoting Raleigh.^[10] In Scots law a casualty was a payment due from a tenant or vassal when certain events occurred, recorded from about 1529.^[4][8] The British use for a hospital's emergency department is recorded from 1927.^[4][11] The related casuality had some currency in the 16th and 17th centuries for a chance occurrence, but is obsolete.^[3]

Timeline

• before 1460 – chance, luck, fate.^[2]
• 1503 – liability to accident, uncertainty (obsolete by 1812).^[4]
• before 1513 – losses of a military force.^[4]
• c. 1529 – an incidental charge or payment; in Scots law, a payment due on certain events.^[4]
• 1844 – a person killed or wounded.^[4][3]
• 1927 – a hospital casualty department.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A member of the armed forces killed, wounded, captured or missing in action: The battalion suffered heavy casualties.^[11][8]
2. A person killed or injured in an accident or disaster.^[11][8]
3. (chiefly British) The department of a hospital that treats emergencies and accident victims.^[11][4]
4. Anything lost, damaged or destroyed as a result of an event or change: The old library was a casualty of the budget cuts.^[11][8]
5. A serious or fatal accident; a disaster.^[8][4]
6. In Scots law, a payment due from a tenant or vassal on certain events.^[8][4]
7. (archaic) Chance or fortune.^[8][4][10]

Word family

• casualty insurance

Related words

• casual
• case
• casuality

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins