caso

Forms

caso m (plural casos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin cāsus (“fall; chance, accident; grammatical case”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin noun is formed from cadō (“to fall, happen”), the source of caer, with the suffix -tus; the older form cāssus lost its double ⟨ss⟩ after the long vowel.^[5][1] The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ḱh₂d- (“to fall”).^[1]

The grammatical sense of the Latin word translates Ancient Greek πτῶσις (ptôsis, “fall; grammatical case”).^[1][6] The same Latin word is Portuguese caso, Galician caso, Catalan cas, Occitan cas, French cas and Italian caso.^[1][7] In the 15th and 16th centuries the ⟨s⟩ of the word was voiced, /z/.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dated the word to Santillana at the beginning of the 15th century, but the CDH has it two centuries earlier.^[2][8] In the Fuero of Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) it is a legal case or circumstance: „en aqueste caso mando que el sennor dela rayz non aya del fructo ninguna cosa” “in this case I order that the owner of the land have none of the fruit”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's prose a caso is a situation or set of circumstances.^[9] Juan Ruiz uses the plural for causes and lawsuits.^[10] In the 15th century it also meant “event” and “chance”, as in Nebrija's casus, fortuna.^[11][12]

Covarrubias in 1611 gave the jurists' caso, the case on which a law decides, and the grammarians' cases, and the phrases no hacer al caso “to be beside the point” and demos caso “let us suppose”.^[13] The Autoridades added “occasion, juncture”.^[14] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 has the medical sense, each individual instance of an epidemic disease.^[15] The DLE now adds the notorious affair that draws public interest and the matter a police force or a court deals with.^[4] In several countries of South America a caso is also a popular tale told as an example.^[4][16]

Timeline

• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero of Zorita de los Canes, the first record without a later copy.^[8]
• 1256–1300 – Alfonso X's prose uses caso for “circumstance”.^[9]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor uses the plural for lawsuits.^[10]
• early 15th century – Santillana, the first record for Corominas.^[2][3]
• c. 1440 – first record of acaso.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin casus, fortuna and fors.^[12]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records no hacer al caso and demos caso.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary adds the medical sense.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. An event, something that happens.^[4][1]
2. chance.^[4]
3. An occasion or circumstance: En ese caso, me quedo en casa.^[4][1]
4. A matter put to someone for an opinion.^[4]
5. (medicine) An individual instance of a disease, especially an epidemic one.^[4][1]
6. A notorious or criminal affair that draws public curiosity.^[4]
7. (law) A matter investigated by the police or tried in court.^[4][1]
8. (grammar) case: the category that marks syntactic relations by inflection, and the function it marks.^[4][1]
9. (Latin America) A popular tale, true or invented, told as an example.^[4][16]

Word family

• acaso

Related words

• casual
• casualidad
• casuística
• caer
• Latin cāsus

Usage notes

Set phrases include caso fortuito “accident, act of God”, caso de conciencia “a point of conscience” and caso perdido “a hopeless case”.^[4] An obsolete legal adjective caso “null, void” is a different word, from Latin cassus.^[15][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 909
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. caso
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. caso
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 158
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 748
8. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. caso
9. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. caso
10. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 103
11. ^ a b Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 643
12. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 312
13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 454
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 216
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 223
16. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. caso