caso

Forms

caso m (plural casi)^[1] Old spellings include Old Italian caxo, Old Italian chaso and Old Italian caço.^[2]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin cāsus (“fall; event, chance; grammatical case”), from cadō (“to fall”).^[3][4][5][6] The grammatical sense was already in Latin, as a calque of Ancient Greek πτῶσις (ptôsis, “fall”), the “falling away” of a word from its direct form, the nominative.^[3][4][6] The same Latin word gave Romansh cas, French cas (from 1220), Old Occitan cas, Catalan cas, Spanish caso and Portuguese caso.^[6][4]

Latin ⟨cāsus⟩ is an action noun from ⟨cadō⟩, which de Vaan derives from Proto-Italic ⟨*kad-e/o-⟩ and, tentatively, a root Proto-Indo-European *ḱh₂d- (“to fall”).^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLIO's first record is in Brunetto Latini's Rettorica, of about 1260–1261, in the sense “chance event, accident”.^[2] DELI's first record of the sense “unforeseen event, chance circumstance” is in Cecco Angiolieri, before 1313.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word also meant any event, a particular circumstance, a hypothesis and a question in dispute, and it formed the phrases a caso and per caso.^[2] DELI dates the sense “point, question” to 1354 (Iacopo Passavanti), “the mysterious cause of events, chance” to 1505 (Pietro Bembo), and a case under a doctor's care to before 1565 (Benedetto Varchi).^[3] The grammatical sense appears in Leon Battista Alberti's grammar, about 1438.^[3] Tasso still uses the Latin sense “fall” for the fall of the rebel angels.^[8]

The sense “sensational affair named after the person involved” dates from 1899, the year of Ettore Ciccotti's Il caso Dreyfus.^[3] Derivatives include casuale (Dante), casomai (1533, Aretino) and a casaccio (1540–1541).^[3] Casista is probably from Spanish casuista.^[3] Maltese borrowed the word as każ.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1260–1261 – Brunetto Latini uses caso.^[2]
• Before 1313 – Cecco Angiolieri uses it for a chance event.^[3][5]
• c. 1438 – Leon Battista Alberti uses the grammatical sense.^[3]
• 1505 – Pietro Bembo uses it for chance as the cause of events.^[3]
• 1533 – Caso mai appears in Pietro Aretino.^[3]
• 1899 – Il caso Dreyfus gives the sense “sensational affair”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A circumstance or situation: in questo caso, in caso di incendio.^[5][9]
2. An event or occurrence: un caso curioso.^[5][10]
3. A possibility or hypothesis: nel caso che piova, i casi sono due.^[5][11][12]
4. chance, a chance event or coincidence: per caso “by chance”, a caso “at random”.^[5][11][10]
5. Chance as the cause of events, fate: Il caso li ha fatti incontrare.^[5][9][10]
6. A question or problem, for example a legal or moral one: un caso di coscienza.^[5][12]
7. A sensational affair, often named after the person involved: il caso Dreyfus.^[5][9]
8. (medicine) A case of an illness: tre casi di morbillo.^[9][3]
9. (grammar) A grammatical case.^[5][9][1]

Word family

• casuale
• casualità
• casomai
• casaccio
• casistica
• casista

Related words

• casualmente
• cadere
• occasione
• accadere
• Latin casus

Usage notes

Fare caso a qualcosa means “to notice, pay attention to something”, and guarda caso “as it happens”, often ironic.^[10][12][11] Casi miei, casi tuoi “my, your business” is a euphemistic alteration of a vulgar phrase.^[9] DEI, GDLI and Sabatini–Coletti treat the grammatical sense as a separate headword, but DELI and Nocentini do not.^[13][14][3] A dialect caso “hayloft, shed” (Vicenza, Piedmont, Lombardy) comes from Latin capsus “enclosure”.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 12, 1349
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
10. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b c Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli
13. ^ Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 793
14. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
15. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Marcato, Carla (1998), I dialetti italiani: dizionario etimologico, Torino: UTET