different between casual vs cavalier

English

Alternative forms

• casuall (obsolete)
• (shortening, informal) cazh

Etymology

From Middle French casuel, from Late Latin c?su?lis (“happening by chance”), from Latin c?sus (“event”) (English case), from cadere (“to fall”) (whence English cadence).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?ka?u?l/, /?ka?ju?l/, /?kazju?l/, /?ka??l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?kæ?u?l/, /?kæ?w?l/, /?kæ??l/
• (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /?k????l/, /?k???l/
• (obsolete) IPA^(key): /-uæl/
• Hyphenation: ca?su?al, cas?ual, casu?al

Adjective

casual (comparative more casual, superlative most casual)

1. Happening by chance.

   • casual breaks, in the general system

2. Coming without regularity; occasional or incidental.

   • a constant habit, rather than a casual gesture

3. Employed irregularly.

4. Careless.
   • 2007, Nick Holland, The Girl on the Bus (page 117)

     I removed my jacket and threw it casually over the back of the settee.

5. Happening or coming to pass without design.
   • 2012, Jeff Miller, Grown at Glen Garden: Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, and the Little Texas Golf Course that Propelled Them to Stardom

     Hogan assumed the entire creek bed was to be played as a casual hazard, moved his ball out and assessed himself a one-stroke penalty.

6. Informal, relaxed.
7. Designed for informal or everyday use.

Synonyms

• (happening by chance): accidental, fortuitous, incidental, occasional, random; see also Thesaurus:accidental
• (happening or coming to pass without design): unexpected
• (relaxed; everyday use): informal

Antonyms

• (happening by chance): inevitable, necessary
• (happening or coming to pass without design): expected, scheduled
• (relaxed; everyday use): ceremonial, formal

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

casual (plural casuals)

1. (Britain, Australia, New Zealand) A worker who is only working for a company occasionally, not as its permanent employee.
2. A soldier temporarily at a place of duty, usually en route to another place of duty.
3. (Britain) A member of a group of football hooligans who wear expensive designer clothing to avoid police attention; see casual (subculture).
4. One who receives relief for a night in a parish to which he does not belong; a vagrant.
5. (video games, informal, derogatory) A player of casual games.

6. (fandom slang) A person whose engagement with media is relaxed or superficial.
   • 1972, Lee C. Garrison, "The Needs of Motion Picture Audiences", California Management Review, Volume 15, Issue 2, Winter 1972, page 149:

     Casuals outnumbered regulars in the art-house audience two to one.

   • 2010, Jennifer Gillan, Television and New Media: Must-Click TV, page 16:

     Most often, when a series is marketed toward casuals, the loyals feel that their interests and needs are not being met.

   • 2018, E. J. Nielsen, "The Gay Elephant Meta in the Room: Sherlock and the Johnlock Conspiracy", in Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans Through Homoerotic Possibilities (ed. Joseph Brennan), page 91:

     Treating a gay relationship as a puzzle that must be pursued by the clever viewers and hidden from “casuals” until a narrative reveal at the eleventh hour seems antithetical to the idea of normalized representation that TJLCers claim as the main reason they want Johnlock to be canon, […]

7. (Britain, dated) A tramp.

Translations

Related terms

• casualty
• case

References

• casual in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• Calusa, casula, causal

Catalan

Adjective

casual (masculine and feminine plural casuals)

1. casual
2. unplanned

Derived terms

• casualitat
• casualment

Portuguese

Adjective

casual m or f (plural casuais, comparable)

1. casual (happening by chance)

   Synonym: fortuito

2. casual (coming without regularity)

   Synonym: ocasional

3. casual (designed for informal or everyday use)

Spanish

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -al

Adjective

casual (plural casuales)

1. casual
2. accidental
3. coincidental, chance

Derived terms

• casualmente

Descendants

• ? Cebuano: kaswal

Further reading

• “casual” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.

English

Etymology

[1589] Borrowed from Middle French cavalier (“horseman”), itself borrowed from Old Italian cavaliere (“mounted soldier, knight”), borrowed from Old Occitan cavalier, from Late Latin caball?rius (“horseman”), from Latin caballus (“horse”), probably from Gaulish caballos 'nag', variant of cabillos (compare Welsh ceffyl, Breton kefel, Irish capall), akin to German (Swabish) K?b 'nag' and Old Church Slavonic ?????? (kobyla) 'mare'.

Previous English forms include cavalero and cavaliero.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kæv??l???/
• Rhymes: -??(?)
• Hyphenation: cav?a?lier

Adjective

cavalier (comparative more cavalier, superlative most cavalier)

1. Not caring enough about something important.
   • 2012, Barbara Seaman, Laura Eldridge, Voices of the Women's Health Movement (volume 1)

     Such a cavalier attitude might seem to suggest that doctors consider the uterus as dispensable an organ as, say, an appendix—and some feminists have accused the medical profession of just such callousness […]

2. High-spirited.
3. Supercilious.

   Synonyms: haughty, disdainful, curt, brusque

4. (historical) Of or pertaining to the party of King Charles I of England (1600–1649).

Translations

Noun

cavalier (plural cavaliers)

1. (historical) A military man serving on horse, (chiefly) early modern cavalry officers who had abandoned the heavy armor of medieval knights.
2. (historical) A gallant: a sprightly young dashing military man.
3. A gentleman of the class of such officers, particularly:
   1. (historical) A courtesan or noble under Charles I of England, particularly a royalist partisan during the English Civil War which ended his reign.

      Antonym: Roundhead

4. (slang) Someone with an uncircumcised penis.

   Antonym: roundhead
5. (architecture) A defensive work rising from a bastion, etc., and overlooking the surrounding area.

Translations

Verb

cavalier (third-person singular simple present cavaliers, present participle cavaliering, simple past and past participle cavaliered)

1. (transitive, dated) Of a man: to act in a gallant and dashing manner toward (women).
   • 1863, Charles Cowden Clarke, Shakespeare-characters; Chiefly Those Subordinate (page 427)

     His social and kind nature is inferred from his cavaliering the ladies Percy and Mortimer, and introducing them, before their husbands depart for the war.

   • 1916, Good Housekeeping (volume 64, page 113)

     "I thought," Graeme burred at him, transfixing him with shrewd eyes, "that you were cavaliering the Italian girl, Beatrice Cenci or Vittoria Colonna or whatever her name is?"

References

Anagrams

• variceal

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian cavaliere, itself borrowed from Old Occitan cavalier, from Late Latin caball?rius. Doublet of chevalier, which was inherited.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ka.va.lje/

Noun

cavalier m (plural cavaliers, feminine cavalière)

1. horseman, particularly:
   • 1876, "C" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. IV, p. 616:

     ...before a in French an original c has the sound sh, and is spelt ch... Exceptions to this rule are generally words incorporated into classical French (i.e., the descendant of the old dialect of the Isle de France) from other dialects, as those of Normandy or Picardy, or are introduced from the Italian, as cavalier, &c.

   1. knight
   2. cavalier: an early modern cavalry officer
   3. (horse-)rider
2. (chess, m) knight
3. (card games, m) knight (in tarot)
4. (m) U-nail, fence staple, construction staple
5. (m) cable clip
6. (danse, m) (male) partner
7. (m) (male) date, (male) companion for social activities

Derived terms

• faire cavalier seul

Adjective

cavalier (feminine singular cavalière, masculine plural cavaliers, feminine plural cavalières)

1. equestrian
2. cavalier (all senses)

See also

Further reading

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

Anagrams

• calvaire