casual

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: cas=u=al

CIDE DICTIONARY

casual, a. [OE. casuel, F. casuel, fr. L. casualis, fr. casus fall, accident, fr. cadere to fall. See Case.].

•  Happening or coming to pass without design, and without being foreseen or expected; accidental; fortuitous; coming by chance.  [1913 Webster]

  "Casual breaks, in the general system."  [1913 Webster]
•  Coming without regularity; occasional; incidental; as, casual expenses.  [1913 Webster]

  "A constant habit, rather than a casual gesture."

Syn. -- Accidental; fortutious; incidental; occasional; contingent; unforeseen. See Accidental.

casual, n. 

 One who receives relief for a night in a parish to which he does not belong; a vagrant.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

casual, adj. & n.
--adj.
1 accidental; due to chance.
2 not regular or permanent; temporary, occasional (casual work; a casual affair).
3 a unconcerned, uninterested (was very casual about it). b made or done without great care or thought (a casual remark). c acting carelessly or unmethodically.
4 (of clothes) informal.
--n.
1 a casual worker.
2 (usu. in pl.) casual clothes or shoes.

Derivative

casually adv. casualness n.

Etymology

ME f. OF casuel & L casualis f. casus CASE(1)

THESAURUS

casual

Bohemian, Charley, Mickey Mouse, VC, Vietcong, accessory, accidental, accidentally, additional, adscititious, adventitious, affable, aimless, airy, aleatory, almsman, almswoman, aloof, amorphous, apathetic, appurtenant, ascititious, ataractic, automatic, auxiliary, bankrupt, beggar, blanket, blase, blue-collar worker, breadwinner, breezy, bushfighter, bushwhacker, by-the-way, capricious, careless, casual laborer, casually, causeless, chance, chancy, charity case, circumstantial, clear, collateral, common, common laborer, conditional, contingent, cool, cordial, cursory, cushy, day laborer, degage, designless, destinal, desultory, detached, devil-may-care, dicey, disarticulated, discontinuous, disinterested, disjunct, disordered, dispassionate, dispersed, disproportionate, disregardant, disregardful, down-and-out, down-and-outer, driftless, dysteleological, easy, easy as pie, easygoing, effortless, employee, en deshabille, erratic, extemporaneous, extempore, extra, facile, factory worker, familiar, fatal, fatidic, fitful, flippant, fluky, flunky, folksy, forgetful, formless, fortuitous, fortuitously, free and easy, free lance, free-lancer, frivolous, full-time worker, general, glib, gracious, gratuitous, guerrilla, gut, hand, haphazard, happy-go-lucky, hardcase, haymish, heedless, hit-or-miss, homely, homey, iffy, ill-advised, ill-considered, ill-devised, immethodical, impromptu, improvised, imprudent, impulsive, in dishabille, inadvertent, inattentive, inchoate, incidental, incoherent, inconsiderable, inconsiderate, incurious, indeliberate, indeterminate, indifferent, indigent, indiscreet, indiscriminate, indiscriminative, industrial worker, inessential, inexcitable, inexplicable, informal, insensitive, insignificant, insouciant, involuntary, irregular, jobber, jobholder, laborer, laboring man, lackadaisical, lazy, light, listless, loose, lounge, low-pressure, maquis, maquisard, meaningless, menial, migrant, mindless, minor, misshapen, moiler, natural, navvy, negligent, nonchalant, nonessential, nonjudgmental, nonsystematic, nonuniform, nothing to it, oblivious, occasional, odd, off, offhand, offhanded, office temporary, orderless, out-of-the-way, painless, parenthetical, part-time, partisan, pauper, penniless man, perfunctory, petty, plain, planless, pococurante, poor devil, poor man, poorling, proletarian, promiscuous, provisional, purposeless, random, reckless, reflex, reflexive, regardless, relaxed, remote, resistance, resistance fighter, respectless, risky, roustabout, salaried worker, secondary, self-employed person, senseless, serendipitous, servant, shapeless, shoestring, side, simple, simple as ABC, small-beer, smooth, snap, sociable, soft, spare, spasmodic, spontaneous, sporadic, sporty, starveling, stiff, stochastic, straggling, straggly, straightforward, stray, subsidiary, superadded, superfluous, supervenient, supplemental, supplementary, systemless, tactless, temporary, thoughtless, toiler, trained, trivial, turned-off, unaccountable, unadvised, unaffected, unanxious, unarranged, unassuming, unburdensome, uncalculated, uncaused, unceremonious, uncertain, unclassified, uncomplicated, unconcerned, unconscious, unconsidered, unconstrained, unconventional, uncritical, uncriticizing, undeliberate, undeliberated, undemanding, underground, underground fighter, undesigned, undetermined, undifferentiating, undiplomatic, undirected, undiscreet, undiscriminating, undiscriminative, unessential, unexacting, unexpected, unfastidious, unforeseeable, unforeseen, unfussy, ungraded, unheedful, unheeding, unimportant, unintended, unintentional, uninterested, unjoined, unlooked-for, unmeditated, unmethodical, unmeticulous, unmindful, unmotivated, unofficial, unordered, unorganized, unparticular, unplanned, unpredictable, unpremeditated, unprepared, unready, unselective, unsolicitous, unsorted, unstudied, unsubtle, unsure, unsymmetrical, unsystematic, untactful, unthinking, ununiform, unwilled, vague, wage earner, wage slave, wageworker, wandering, welfare client, wholesale, withdrawn, worker, workgirl, workhand, working girl, workingman, workingwoman, workman

ROGET THESAURUS

casual

Chance

N chance, lot, fate, luck, good luck, mascot, speculation, venture, stake, game of chance, mere shot, random shot, blind bargain, leap in the dark, pig in a poke, fluke, potluck, faro bank, flyer, limit, uncertainty, uncertainty principle, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, drawing lots, sortilegy, sortition, sortes, sortes Virgilianae, rouge et noir, hazard, ante, chuck-a-luck, crack-loo, craps, faro, roulette, pitch and toss, chuck, farthing, cup tossing, heads or tails cross and pile, poker-dice, wager, bet, betting, gambling, the turf, gaming house, gambling house, betting house, bucket shop, gambling joint, totalizator, totalizer, hell, betting ring, dice, dice box, gambler, gamester, man of the turf, adventurer, dicer, fortuitous, unintentional, unintended, accidental, not meant, undesigned, purposed, unpremeditated, unforeseen, uncontemplated, never thought of, random, indiscriminate, promiscuous, undirected, aimless, driftless, designless, purposeless, causeless, without purpose, possible, unforeseeable, unpredictable, chancy, risky, speculative, dicey, randomly, by chance, fortuitously, unpredictably, unforeseeably, casually, unintentionally, unwittingly, en passant, by the way, incidentally, as it may happen, at random, at a venture, at haphazard, acierta errando, dextro tempore, fearful concatenation of circumstances, fortuitous combination of circumstances, le jeu est le fils d'avarice et le pere du desespo, the happy combination of fortuitous circumstances, the fortuitous or casual concourse of atoms, God does not play dice with the universe, chance, indetermination, accident, fortune, hazard, hap, haphazard, chance medley, random, luck, raccroc, casualty, contingence, adventure, hit, fate, equal chance, lottery, tombola, toss up, turn of the table, turn of the cards, hazard of the die, chapter of accidents, fickle finger of fate, cast of the dice, throw of the dice, heads or tails, flip of a coin, wheel of Fortune, sortes, sortes Virgilianae, probability, possibility, odds, long odds, run of luck, accidentalness, main chance, odds on, favorable odds, contingency, dependence (uncertainty), situation (circumstance), statistics, theory of Probabilities, theory of Chances, bookmaking, assurance, speculation, gaming, casual, fortuitous, accidental, adventitious, causeless, incidental, contingent, uncaused, undetermined, indeterminate, random, statistical, possible, unintentional, by chance, accidentally, by accident, casually, perchance, for aught one knows, as good would have it, as bad would have it, as luck would have it, as ill-luck would have it, as chance would have it, as it may be, as it may chance, as it may turn up, as it may happen, as the case may be, grasps the skirts of happy chance, the accident of an accident, There but for the grace of God go I.

Uncertainty

N uncertainty, incertitude, doubt, doubtfulness, dubiety, dubitation, dubitancy, dubitousness, hesitation, suspense, perplexity, embarrassment, dilemma, bewilderment, timidity, vacillation, diaporesis, indetermination, vagueness, haze, fog, obscurity, ambiguity, contingency, dependence, dependency, double contingency, possibility upon a possibility, open question, onus probandi, blind bargain, pig in a poke, leap in the dark, something or other, needle in a haystack, needle in a bottle of hay, roving commission, precariousness, fallibility, uncertain, casual, random, changeable, doubtful, dubious, indecisive, unsettled, undecided, undetermined, in suspense, open to discussion, controvertible, in question, vague, indeterminate, indefinite, ambiguous, equivocal, undefined, undefinable, confused, mystic, oracular, dazed, perplexing, enigmatic, paradoxical, apocryphal, problematical, hypothetical, experimental, unpredictable, unforeseeable (unknowable), fallible, questionable, precarious, slippery, ticklish, debatable, disputable, unreliable, untrustworthy, contingent, contingent on, dependent on, subject to, dependent on circumstances, occasional, provisional, unauthentic, unauthenticated, unauthoritative, unascertained, unconfirmed, undemonstrated, untold, uncounted, in a state of uncertainty, in a cloud, in a maze, bushed, off the track, ignorant, afraid to say, out of one's reckoning, astray, adrift, at sea, at fault, at a loss, at one's wit's end, at a nonplus, puzzled, lost, abroad, d_esorient_e, distracted, distraught, pendente lite, sub spe rati, Heaven knows, who can tell? who shall decide when doctors disagr.