different between case vs thing

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ke?s/
• Rhymes: -e?s
• Hyphenation: case

Etymology 1

Middle English cas, from Old French cas (“an event”), from Latin c?sus (“a falling, a fall; accident, event, occurrence; occasion, opportunity; noun case”), perfect passive participle of cad? (“to fall, to drop”).

Noun

case (plural cases)

1. An actual event, situation, or fact.
2. (now rare) A given condition or state.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.10:

     Ne wist he how to turne, nor to what place: / Was never wretched man in such a wofull cace.

   • 1726, Nathan Bailey, John Worlidge, Dictionarium Rusticum, Urbanicum & Botanicum

     Mares which are over-fat, hold with much difficulty; whereas those that are but in good case and plump, conceive with the greatest readiness and ease.

3. A piece of work, specifically defined within a profession.
4. (academia) An instance or event as a topic of study.
6. (law) A legal proceeding, lawsuit.
7. (grammar) A specific inflection of a word depending on its function in the sentence.

   • Now, the Subject of either an indicative or a subjunctive Clause is always assigned Nominative case, as we see from:
     (16) (a) ? I know [that they/*them/*their leave for Hawaii tomorrow]
     (16) (b) ? I demand [that they/*them/*their leave for Hawaii tomorrow]
     By contrast, the Subject of an infinitive Clause is assigned Objective case, as we see from:
     (17) ? I want [them/*they/*their to leave for Hawaii tomorrow]
     And the Subject of a gerund Clause is assigned either Objective or Genitive case: cf.
     (18) ? I don't like the idea of [them/their/*they leaving for Hawaii tomorrow]

8. (grammar, uncountable) Grammatical cases and their meanings taken either as a topic in general or within a specific language.

9. (medicine) An instance of a specific condition or set of symptoms.

10. (programming) A section of code representing one of the actions of a conditional switch.

Synonyms

Hyponyms

• court case
• See also Thesaurus:grammatical case

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

case (third-person singular simple present cases, present participle casing, simple past and past participle cased)

1. (obsolete) to propose hypothetical cases

See also

• Appendix:Grammatical cases

References

• case on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Etymology 2

From Middle English cas, from Old Northern French casse, (compare Old French chasse (“box, chest, case”)), from Latin capsa (“box, bookcase”), from capi? (“to take, seize, hold”). Doublet of cash.

Noun

case (plural cases)

2. A box that contains or can contain a number of identical items of manufacture.
3. A box, sheath, or covering generally.

4. A piece of luggage that can be used to transport an apparatus such as a sewing machine.
5. An enclosing frame or casing.

6. A suitcase.
7. A piece of furniture, constructed partially of transparent glass or plastic, within which items can be displayed.
8. The outer covering or framework of a piece of apparatus such as a computer.
9. (printing, historical) A shallow tray divided into compartments or "boxes" for holding type, traditionally arranged in sets of two, the "upper case" (containing capitals, small capitals, accented) and "lower case" (small letters, figures, punctuation marks, quadrats, and spaces).
10. (typography, by extension) The nature of a piece of alphabetic type, whether a “capital” (upper case) or “small” (lower case) letter.
11. (poker slang) Four of a kind.
12. (US) A unit of liquid measure used to measure sales in the beverage industry, equivalent to 192 fluid ounces.
13. (mining) A small fissure which admits water into the workings.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Knight to this entry?)

14. A thin layer of harder metal on the surface of an object whose deeper metal is allowed to remain soft.
15. A cardboard box that holds (usually 24) beer bottles or cans.

    Synonym: carton

Hyponyms

Translations

References

• Weisenberg, Michael (2000) The Official Dictionary of Poker. MGI/Mike Caro University. ?ISBN

Adjective

case (not comparable)

1. (poker slang) The last remaining card of a particular rank.
   • 2006, David Apostolico, Lessons from the Professional Poker Tour (page 21)

     If he did have a bigger ace, I still had at least six outs — the case ace, two nines, and three tens. I could also have more outs if he held anything less than A-K.

References

• Weisenberg, Michael (2000) The Official Dictionary of Poker. MGI/Mike Caro University. ?ISBN

Verb

case (third-person singular simple present cases, present participle casing, simple past and past participle cased)

1. (transitive) To place (an item or items of manufacture) into a box, as in preparation for shipment.
2. (transitive) To cover or protect with, or as if with, a case; to enclose.
   • 1856-1858, William H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip II

     The man who, cased in steel, had passed whole days and nights in the saddle.

3. (transitive, informal) To survey (a building or other location) surreptitiously, as in preparation for a robbery.
   • 1977, Michael Innes, The Gay Phoenix, ?ISBN, page 116:

     You are in the grounds of Brockholes Abbey, a house into which a great deal of valuable property has just been moved. And your job is to case the joint for a break in.

   • 2014, Amy Goodman, From COINTELPRO to Snowden, the FBI Burglars Speak Out After 43 Years of Silence (Part 2), Democracy Now!, January 8, 2014, 0:49 to 0:57:

     Bonnie worked as a daycare director. She helped case the FBI office by posing as a college student interested in becoming an FBI agent.

Translations

Derived terms

• case the deck

Anagrams

• ACEs, ASCE, Aces, Ceas, ESCA, SCEA, aces, aesc, esca, æsc

Afar

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???se/

Verb

casé

1. (transitive) hit

Conjugation

References

• Mohamed Hassan Kamil (2015) L’afar: description grammaticale d’une langue couchitique (Djibouti, Erythrée et Ethiopie)?^[2], Paris: Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (doctoral thesis), page 263

Asturian

Verb

case

1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive of casar

Chinese

Alternative forms

• K?

Etymology

Borrowed from English case.

Pronunciation

Noun

case

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) case (clarification of this definition is needed)
   • 2015, ???, ????????? II??????????

     ????case???????????????case?? [Cantonese, trad.]
     ????case???????????????case?? [Cantonese, simp.]

     ni¹ go³ hou² do¹ kei¹ si² gaa³. ni¹ jat¹ go³, zau⁶ hai⁶ zoeng¹ gwok³ wing⁴, jau⁵ gam² go³ kei¹ si² laa¹. [Jyutping]

     That kind of case happens often. It happened with Leslie Cheung.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin casa, in the sense of "hut, cabin". The other senses are a semantic loan from Spanish casa. Doublet of chez, which was inherited.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?z/
• Homophone: cases

Noun

case f (plural cases)

1. (archaic, rare or regional) hut, cabin, shack
2. box (on form)
3. square (on board game)

Derived terms

• case départ
• case à cocher

Further reading

• “case” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• à sec

Galician

Alternative forms

• caixe

Etymology

Attested since the 15th century (quasy), from Latin quasi (“as if”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?k?s?]

Adverb

case

1. almost

References

• “quasy” in Xavier Varela Barreiro & Xavier Gómez Guinovart: Corpus Xelmírez - Corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval. SLI / Grupo TALG / ILG, 2006-2016.
• “case” in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega, SLI - ILGA 2006-2013.
• “case” in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega. Santiago: ILG.
• “case” in Álvarez, Rosario (coord.): Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués, Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega.

Italian

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: ca?se

Noun

case f

1. plural of casa

Anagrams

• asce, esca, seca

Lower Sorbian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?sas?/, [?t?sas?]

Noun

case

1. nominative/accusative plural of cas

Middle Dutch

Etymology

From Old Dutch *k?si, from late Proto-West Germanic *k?s?, borrowed from Latin c?seus.

Noun

câse m or n

1. cheese

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Alternative forms

• kese (eastern)

Descendants

• Dutch: kaas
  • Afrikaans: kaas
    • ? Sotho: kase
    • ? Tswana: kase
  • ? Papiamentu: keshi (from the diminutive)
  • ? Sranan Tongo: kasi
• Limburgish: kieës, kees

Further reading

• “case”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E.; Verdam, J. (1885–1929) , “case (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, ?ISBN, page I

Old French

Noun

case m (oblique plural cases, nominative singular cases, nominative plural case)

1. (grammar) case

Portuguese

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: ca?se
• Rhymes: -azi

Verb

case

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of casar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of casar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of casar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of casar

Romanian

Noun

case

1. plural of cas?

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kase/, [?ka.se]

Verb

case

1. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of casar.
2. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of casar.
3. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of casar.
4. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of casar.

Venetian

Noun

case

1. plural of casa

English

Alternative forms

• thang (slang, pronunciation spelling, usually used to denote a known fad or popular activity)
• thin' (informal, pronunciation spelling)
• thinge (archaic)
• thynge (obsolete)
• ting (Caribbean creoles, MLE)

Etymology

From Middle English thing, from Old English þing, from Proto-Germanic *þing?; compare West Frisian ding, Low German Ding, Dutch ding, German Ding, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian ting. The word originally meant "assembly", then came to mean a specific issue discussed at such an assembly, and ultimately came to mean most broadly "an object". Compare Latin r?s, also meaning "legal matter", and same transition from Latin causa (“legal matter”) to "thing" in Romance languages. Modern use to refer to a Germanic assembly is likely influenced by cognates (from the same Proto-Germanic root) like Old Norse þing (“thing”), Swedish ting, and Old High German ding with this meaning.

Pronunciation

• enPR: th?ng, IPA^(key): /???/
• Rhymes: -??

Noun

thing (plural things)

1. That which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.
   • 1611 — King James Version of the Bible, Luke 1:1

     Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us...
2. A word, symbol, sign, or other referent that can be used to refer to any entity.
3. An individual object or distinct entity.
4. (informal) A genuine concept, entity or phenomenon; something that actually exists (often contrary to expectation or belief). [from 20th c.]
   • 2014, Marianna Papastephanou, Torill Strand, Anne Pirrie, Philosophy as a Lived Experience

     Frequent statements of the kind “'Race' is not a thing”, “'races,' put simply, do not exist”, “'race' (as each essay subtly shows) simply does not exist” aim to discredit Todorov's claim that a relapse to an ontology of race is at place […]

   • 2019, Adam Gopnik, A Thousand Small Sanities, Riverrun 2019, p. 88:

     Conservative philosophy, in other words, is, as we say now, a thing and deserves a serious listen.

5. (law)
   1. Whatever can be owned.
   2. Corporeal object.
6. (somewhat dated, with the) The latest fad or fashion.
   • 1802, Anne Ormsby, "Memoirs of a Family in Swisserland", quoted in The Monthly Review, Or, Literary Journal page 45:

     To go to bed late, to rise late, to breakfast late, to dine late, and to visit late, is to be “quite the thing,” or in good English, which you may understand better than the first phrase, to be in the fashion.

   • 2002, Roger Nichols, The Harlequin Years: Music in Paris 1917-1929, Univ of California Press (?ISBN)

     After a slow start it became the thing to do; 'everyone went to see Pbi-Pbi, no one talked of anything but Pbi-Pbi […] '

7. (in the plural) Clothes, possessions or equipment.

8. (informal) A unit or container, usually containing edible goods.
   • 2011, Juliette Fay, Deep Down True: A Novel, Penguin (?ISBN)

     I came home and ate a whole thing of ice cream.

9. (informal) A problem, dilemma, or complicating factor.

10. (slang) A penis.
    • 1959, William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, 50th anniversary edition (2009), p. 126:

      “Oh Gertie it’s true. It’s all true. They’ve got a horrid gash instead of a thrilling thing.”

11. A living being or creature.

12. That which matters; the crux.

13. Used after a noun to refer dismissively to the situation surrounding the noun's referent.
    • 1914, Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, The Movie Man [playscript]:

      Don’t forget to have Gomez postpone that shooting thing. (in reference to the execution of Fernandez)

14. (informal) That which is favoured; personal preference. (Used in possessive constructions.)
15. (chiefly historical) A public assembly or judicial council in a Germanic country.
    • 1974, Jón Jóhannesson, A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth: Íslendinga Saga, translated by Haraldur Bessason, page 46:

      In accordance with Old Germanic custom men came to the thing fully armed, [...]

    • 1974, Jakob Benediktsson, Landnám og upphaf allsherjarríkis, in Saga Íslands, quoted in 1988 by Jesse L. Byock in Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power, page 85:

      The goðar seem both to have received payment of thing-fararkaup from those who stayed home and at the same time compensated those who went to the thing, and it cannot be seen whether they had any profit from these transactions.

    • 1988, Jesse L. Byock, Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power, page 59:

      All Icelandic things were skap-thing, meaning that they were governed by established procedure and met at regular legally designated intevals at predetermined meeting places.

16. (informal) A romantic relationship.

Synonyms

• (referent that can be used to refer to any entity): item, stuff (uncountable equivalent), yoke (Ireland)
• (penis): see Thesaurus:penis
• (personal preference): see Thesaurus:predilection

Derived terms

Related terms

• diminutives: thingy / thingie, thingo [Aus]

Translations

Further reading

• thing in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• thing in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Verb

thing (third-person singular simple present things, present participle thinging, simple past and past participle thinged)

1. (rare) To express as a thing; to reify.

Anagrams

• Night, night

Khumi Chin

Etymology

From Proto-Kuki-Chin *thi?, from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *si?. Cognates include Mizo thing and Zou sing.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t???/

Noun

thing

1. firewood

References

• K. E. Herr (2011) The phonological interpretation of minor syllables, applied to Lemi Chin?^[1], Payap University, page 44

Middle English

Alternative forms

• thinge, ðhing

Etymology

From Old English þing, from Proto-West Germanic *þing.

Noun

thing (plural thinges)

1. thing

Descendants

• English: thing
• Scots: thing, ting, hing
• Yola: dhing

References

• “thing, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Mizo

Etymology

From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *si?. Akin to Khumi Chin thing.

Noun

thing

1. tree
2. wood
3. firewood

References

• Matisoff, James A., Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman, University of California Press.

Old Dutch

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *þing?.

Noun

thing n

1. thing, object
2. case, matter, issue

Inflection

Descendants

• Middle Dutch: dinc
  • Dutch: ding
    • Afrikaans: ding
  • Limburgish: dink, ding

Further reading

• “think”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

Old High German

Alternative forms

• ding, dink

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *þing?

Noun

thing n

1. thing, object
2. matter, case

Declension

Descendants

• Middle High German: ding
  • Cimbrian: ding
  • German: Ding
  • Luxembourgish: Déngen
  • Pennsylvania German: Ding

Old Saxon

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *þing. Compare Old Dutch thing, Old Frisian thing, Old English þing, Old High German ding, Old Norse þing.

Noun

thing n

1. thing, object
2. matter, case

Declension

Descendants

• Middle Low German: dink
  • German Low German: Ding
  • Plautdietsch: Dinkj