different between sundry vs casual

English

Alternative forms

• sindry (dialectal)
• sondry (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English sundry, sondry, sindry, from Old English syndri? (“separate, single; sundry, various, distinct; special, private, peculiar, exceptional, particular; characteristic; (distributive) one each”), from sundor (“asunder, apart, separately”); equivalent to sunder +? -y. Cognate with Low German sunderig (“single, special”), Middle High German sunderig (“separate, special, private”), Swedish söndrig (“broken, tattered”), Dutch zonderlijk (“separate”) and more common Dutch afzonderlijk (“separate”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?s?n.d?i/

Adjective

sundry

1. (obsolete) Separate; distinct; diverse.
2. (obsolete) Individual; one for each.
3. Several; diverse; more than one or two; various.
   • 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

     Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages / And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes / To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

   • 1886-88, Richard F. Burton, The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night:

     Thereupon, quoth he, "O woman, for sundry days I have seen thee attend the levée sans a word said; so tell me an thou have any requirement I may grant."

4. Consisting of a haphazard assortment of different kinds; miscellaneous.

Synonyms

• (separate): detached, loose; See also Thesaurus:separate
• (one for each): individual, personal, single
• (more than one or two): diverse, various; See also Thesaurus:heterogeneous
• (consisting of a haphazard assortment of different kinds): See also Thesaurus:assorted

Derived terms

• all and sundry
• sundrily
• sundriness

Related terms

• sunder

Noun

sundry (plural sundries)

1. (usually in the plural) A minor miscellaneous item.
   • 1865, Frances Freeling Broderip, Crosspatch, the Cricket, and the Counterpane, page 16,

     Here she kept her scarlet cloak, her Sunday shoes, her best cap and apron, and her steeple-crowned hat; but down at the very bottom, underneath her new checked petticoat, she found a little bag of sundries, which might serve her purpose, and which she sat down to examine at her leisure.

   • 1924 March, Advertisement, Popular Mechanics, page 192,

     Our big free catalog illustrates and describes parts, equipment and sundries that our more than a million riders may need.

   • 1931 June, Advertisement, Boys? Life, page 54,

     It pays you to buy from Bicycle Specialists We have been in business 40 years, and can offer you positively the lowest prices for high-grade bicycles, tires and sundries.

2. (in the plural, accounting) A category for irregular or miscellaneous items not otherwise classified.
   • 1905, William Mott Steuart (United States Bureau of the Census), Special Reports: Mines and quarries 1902, page 476,

     Miscellaheous expenses,—This item includes rent and royalties of all descriptions, “taxes, insurance, interest, advertising, office supplies, law expenses, injuries and damages, telegraph and telephone service, gas, and all other sundries not reported elsewhere.”

   • 1910, William Mott Steuart, Thomas Commerford Martin (United States Bureau of the Census), Street and Electric Railways 1907, page 181,

     In 1902 franchise values were largely carried as sundries, but it is a very common practice to charge these values to cost of construction and equipment.

   • 2009, Neville Box, VCE Accounting Units 3 & 4, 4th Edition, unnumbered page,

     Any payment listed in the Sundries column must be posted individually to the appropriate ledger account.

   • 2011, Robert Rodgers, Peter Lucas, Bookkeeping and Accounting Essentials, page 105,

     The petty cash book classifies payments as petrol and oils, postage, office, sundries and GST paid.

3. (usually in the plural, cricket, chiefly Australia) An extra.
   • 1954, Percy Taylor, Richmond?s 100 years of cricket: The Story of the Richmond Cricket Club, 1854-1954, unidentified page,

     The wicketkeeper for Williamstown had a bad day, as sundries topped the score with 30.

   • 1998, Donald Bradman, The Art of Cricket, page 167,

     In the modern era I sometimes feel the emphasis has erroneously shifted towards placing unwarranted importance on how few sundries are recorded.

   • 1999, Ashok Kumar, DPH Sports Series: Cricket, Discovery Publishing House, India, page 145,

     As for sundries, these are very often caused by erratic bowling or a nasty pitch.

Derived terms

• sundryman

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.