different between patience vs casualty

English

Etymology

From Middle English pacience, from Old French pacience (modern French patience), from Latin patientia. Displaced native Middle English thuld, thuild (“patience”) (from Old English þyld (“patience”)), Middle English thole (“patience”) (from Old Norse þol (“patience, endurance”)), Middle English bil?fing, bileaving (“patience, perseverance, remaining”) (from Old English bel?fan (“to endure, survive”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pe???ns/

Noun

patience (usually uncountable, plural patiences)

1. The quality of being patient.
2. Any of various card games that can be played by one person. Called solitaire in the US. (card game).

Synonyms

• thild
• thole (obsolete, rare, or regional)

Antonyms

• impatience

Related terms

• passion
• passionate
• passive
• passivity
• patient

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: pasensi

Translations

Further reading

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

See also

• clock patience
• garden patience

French

Etymology

From Old French pacience, borrowed from Latin patientia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pa.sj??s/

Noun

patience f (plural patiences)

1. patience

Derived terms

• perdre patience
• prendre son mal en patience

Related terms

• patient

Further reading

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

Middle English

Noun

patience

1. Alternative form of pacience

English

Etymology

From casual, from Middle French casuel, from Medieval Latin casualitas and Late Latin c?su?lis (“happening by chance”), from Latin c?sus (“event”) (English case), from cadere (“to fall”). Originally meaning “a chance event” (compare casual, as in “casual encounter”), it developed a negative meaning as “an unfortunate event”, especially the loss of a person.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?ka?(?)?lti/

Noun

casualty (countable and uncountable, plural casualties)

1. Something that happens by chance, especially an unfortunate event; an accident, a disaster.
   • 1756, Samuel Johnson, “The Life of Sir Thomas Browne” in Thomas Browne, Christian Morals, 2nd edition, London: J. Payne, p. xx,^[1]

     The course of his education was like that of others, such as put him little in the way of extraordinary casualties.

2. A person suffering from injuries or who has been killed due to an accident or through an act of violence.
3. (proscribed) Specifically, a person who has been killed (not only injured) due to an accident or through an act of violence; a fatality.
4. (military) A person in military service who becomes unavailable for duty, for any reason (notably death, injury, illness, capture, or desertion).
5. (Britain) The accident and emergency department of a hospital.
6. An incidental charge or payment.
7. Someone or something adversely affected by a decision, event or situation.
8. (obsolete) Chance nature; randomness.
   • , NYRB 2001, vol.1, p.327-8:

     The non-necessary [causes] follow; of which, saith Fuchsius, no art can be made, by reason of their uncertainty, casualty, and multitude […]

Usage notes

The term casualty is sometimes used to mean “a killed person”; in more careful use this is referred to as a fatality, and casualty instead means “killed or injured”.

Synonyms

• (something that happens by chance): fortune, luck; see also Thesaurus:luck
• (hospital's accident and emergency):
  • emergency / emergency room / emergency department / emergency ward / E. R./E.R./ER
  • casualty department / casualty ward
  • accident and emergency / A&E

Hyponyms

• fatality

Derived terms

• casualty department
• casualty event
• casualty ward

Related terms

• casual

Translations

References

• “casualty”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.