casual

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

From Middle French casuel, from Late Latin cāsuālis (“happening by chance”), from Latin cāsus (“event”) (English case), from cadere (“to fall”) (whence English cadence).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkaʒ(uː)əl/, /ˈkaʒjuːəl/, /ˈkazjuːəl/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkæʒ(u)əl/, /ˈkæʒwəl/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈkɛʒ(ʉː)əl/
• (obsolete) IPA^(key): /-uːæl/
• Hyphenation: ca‧su‧al, cas‧ual, casu‧al

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

casual (comparative more casual, superlative most casual)

1. Happening by chance.

   They only had casual meetings.

   • 1819 June 23 – 1820 September 13, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “(please specify the title)”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., New York, N.Y.: C S. Van Winkle, , →OCLC:

     casual breaks, in the general system

2. Coming without regularity; occasional or incidental.

   The purchase of donuts was just a casual expense.

   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 9, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:

     a constant habit, rather than a casual gesture

3. Employed irregularly.

   He was just a casual worker.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything. In a moment she had dropped to the level of a casual labourer.

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.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 8, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     It was a casual sneer, obviously one of a long line. There was hatred behind it, but of a quiet, chronic type, nothing new or unduly virulent, and he was taken aback by the flicker of amazed incredulity that passed over the younger man's ravaged face.

   • 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.

7. (of behavior, usage, or milieu) Informal; relaxed.

   tone in casual interactions

9. (of clothing or utensils) Designed for informal or everyday use.

   Hyponym: business casual

   pants in the casual wear collection

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

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

casual (plural casuals)

1. (British, 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.
4. (UK, historical) A member of a group of football hooligans who wear expensive designer clothing to avoid police attention; see casual (subculture).

   Synonyms: dresser, (Manchester) Perry boy

   • 2019 September 14, Miranda Sawyer, “Mark Leckey: ‘There has to be a belief that art has this power, this charisma'”, in The Guardian‎:

     At 15, he became a casual: one of the label-wearing, wedge-flicking, swaggering hooligan peacock boys who dominated the north-west when I was growing up. Casuals were working-class lads (called Perry boys in Manchester) who loved football, fighting and brilliant sportswear.

5. One who receives relief for a night in a parish to which he does not belong; a vagrant.
6. (video games, informal, derogatory) A player of casual games.

   The devs dumbed the game down so the casuals could enjoy it.

7. (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 Joseph Brennan, editor, Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans Through Homoerotic Possibilities, 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, […]

8. (British, dated) A tramp.
   • 1983, Reg Butler, Reg Butler, London: Tate Gallery London, page 14:

     I was a boy in 1922 or 1923, when buses first started to run between the village and the town; there were tramps, casuals as they were called; the whole pattern of my boyhood was knit into a very loaded atmosphere of human character.

9. (in the plural) Shoes suitable for everyday use, as opposed to more formal footwear.
   • 1948 December, “Shoes: Competition Is Back”, in Kiplinger Magazine, page 47, column 2:

     Next spring you’ll see more women than ever wearing “casuals” and “flats,” the shoes with the wedge heels or no heels at all.

   • 1959, The Medical Officer, page 158:

     In girls wearing casuals, ugly hypertrophied skin over the heels was frequently noted, probably due to the loose shoe moving as they walked.

   • 1967, Kenneth Tynan, Tynan Right & Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, page 65:

     Like his friends, he is wearing casuals, ideal for lounging around crypts.

   • 1984, William Golding, The Paper Men, page 71:

     He and I were wearing casuals […]

• casualty
• case

• “casual”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Calusa, casula, causal

Borrowed from Latin cāsuālis.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic)
• IPA^(key): (Valencia)

casual m or f (masculine and feminine plural casuals)

1. casual
2. unplanned

• casualitat
• casualment

• “casual” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “casual”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “casual” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “casual” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Borrowed from Latin cāsuālis.

• Rhymes: (Portugal) -al, (Brazil) -aw
• Hyphenation: ca‧su‧al

casual m or f (plural casuais)

1. casual (happening by chance)

   Synonym: fortuito

2. casual (coming without regularity)

   Synonym: ocasional

3. casual (designed for informal or everyday use)

• “casual”, in iDicionário Aulete (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2024
• “casual”, in Dicionário inFormal (in Portuguese), 2006–2024
• “casual” in Dicionário Aberto based on Novo Diccionário da Língua Portuguesa de Cândido de Figueiredo, 1913
• “casual”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2024
• “casual”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2024
• “casual”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2024

• causal

From Latin cāsuālis.

• IPA^(key): /kaˈswal/
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: ca‧sual

casual m or f (masculine and feminine plural casuales)

1. casual
2. accidental
3. coincidental, chance

• → Cebuano: kaswal

• “casual”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28