case

Ⅰ.

case [1] ► NOUN 1) an instance of a particular situation or set of circumstances. 2) an instance of a disease, injury, or problem. 3) an incident under official investigation by the police. 4) a legal action that is to be or has been decided in a court of law. 5) a set of facts or arguments supporting one side of a debate or lawsuit. 6) a person or their situation as a subject of medical or welfare attention. 7) Grammar an inflected form of a noun, adjective, or pronoun expressing the semantic relation of the word to other words in the sentence: the possessive case.

● be the case — Cf. ↑be the case

● in case — Cf. ↑in case

● on (or off) someone's case — Cf. ↑on someone's case

ORIGIN Latin casus 'fall, occurrence, chance' .

Ⅱ.

case [2] ► NOUN 1) a container or protective covering. 2) Brit. a suitcase. 3) a box containing twelve bottles of wine or other drink, sold as a unit. 4) each of the two forms, capital or minuscule, in which a letter of the alphabet may be written or printed.

► VERB 1) enclose within a case. 2) informal reconnoitre (a place) before carrying out a robbery.

ORIGIN Old French casse, from Latin capsa 'box, receptacle' ; sense 4 derives from a container for holding type in printing; two cases were set on a stand, the higher one for capitals (upper case) and the lower for minuscule (lower case).