case – English noun declension

English noun forms of case

Noun: case
Singularcase
Pluralcases

Sample Sentences

  • For a change, in this case, he was telling the truth.
  • It is not the case that every unfamiliar phrase is an idiom.
  • In case of fire, break glass. [sign on fire extinguisher holder in public space]
  • Conditioning would require exposition to any sentence before being uttered, which isn’t the case.
  • Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete. [2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:]
  • Thus vvhilſt he hopt he hild her leaſt, ſo altereth the cace / VVith ſuch as ſhe, Ah ſuch it is to build on ſuch a face. [1586, William Warner, “The Fourth Booke. Chapter XXXVI.”, in Albions England. Or Historicall Map of the Same Island: […], London: […] George Robinson [and R. Ward] for Thomas Cadman, […], →OCLC, page 174:]
  • Ne wist he how to turne, nor to what place: / Was never wretched man in such a wofull cace. [1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:]
  • Mares which are over-fat, hold with much difficulty; whereas those that are but in good case and plump, conceive with the greatest readiness and ease. [1726, Nathan Bailey, John Worlidge, Dictionarium Rusticum, Urbanicum & Botanicum:]
  • It was one of the detective's easiest cases.
  • Social workers should work on a maximum of forty active cases.
  • The doctor told us of an interesting case he had treated that morning.
  • We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect of so large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. [1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:]
  • The case was that of a murder. It had an element of mystery about it, however, which was puzzling the authorities. A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff. These properties were known to have belonged to a toddy drawer. He had disappeared. [1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 4, in Pulling the Strings:]
  • The teaching consists of theory lessons and case studies.
  • He draws eclectically on studies of baboons, descriptive anthropological accounts of hunter-gatherer societies and, in a few cases, the fossil record. [2012 March-April, John T. Jost, “Social Justice: Is It in Our Nature (and Our Future)?”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, page 162:]
  • “Two or three months more went by ; the public were eagerly awaiting the arrival of this semi-exotic claimant to an English peerage, and sensations, surpassing those of the Tichbourne case, were looked forward to with palpitating interest. […]” [1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Tremarn Case”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:]
  • As the conflict has dragged on, prosecutors in Ukraine are now pursuing 247 cases of environmental war crimes against Russia in Ukrainian courts and the International Criminal Court, according to reporting published in April by the New York Times. [2025 November 20, Simmone Shah, “Ukraine to Claim $44bn in Climate Damages From Russia. Why War Is So Bad For Emissions”, in TIME, archived from the original on 08 Dec 2025:]
  • The accusative case most commonly indicates a direct object.
  • Latin has six cases, and remnants of a seventh.
  • Now, the Subject of either an indicative or a subjunctive Clause is always assigned Nominative case, as we see from:
  • (16) (a) I know [that they/*them/*their leave for Hawaii tomorrow]
  • (16) (b)   I demand [that they/*them/*their leave for Hawaii tomorrow]
  • By contrast, the Subject of an infinitive Clause is assigned Objective case, as we see from:
  • (17)   I want [them/*they/*their to leave for Hawaii tomorrow]
  • And the Subject of a gerund Clause is assigned either Objective or Genitive case: cf.
  • (18)   I don't like the idea of [them/their/*they leaving for Hawaii tomorrow] [1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 6, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 292:]
  • Jane has been studying case in Caucasian languages.
  • Latin is a language that employs case.
  • There were another five cases reported overnight.
  • We turn next to the puzzle of borderlineness: If Harry is intermediate between clear cases and clear noncases of baldness, “Is Harry bald?” seems to have no good, direct, answer. [2013, Gillian Russell, Delia Graff Fara, Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language, page 144:]
  • Place a break statement at the end of every case to prevent case fall-through. [2004, Rick Miller, C++ for Artists:]
  • Execution does not automatically stop at the next case. [2011, Stephen Prata, C++ Primer Plus, page 275:]
  • Poor fellow, just as I thought! It's a case with him, anybody can see that. He is thinking about Christine, for a certainty. Lovers always take to stargazing and moonlight dreaming — it's part of their complaint. [1867, The Young Ladies' Journal, page 467:]
  • I thought it only an amourette when you told me. It was a fire — a conflagration; subdue it. I saw it was a case, and I advised you to try — dissipation. [1876, The New York Drama, volumes 1-2, page 1:]

Etymology

From Middle English cas, from Old French cas (“an event”), from Latin cāsus (“a falling, a fall; accident, event, occurrence; occasion, opportunity; noun case”), perfect passive participle of cadō (“to fall, to drop”). See: Middle English Nouns 'cas', Latin Nouns 'cāsus'.

Verbs referencing "case"

Norwegian Bokmål Nouns case, Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns case, Swedish Nouns case, Spanish Nouns caja, Asturian Nouns caxa, Russian Nouns кейс, Zulu Nouns ikesi, Finnish Nouns keissi.