Casual

How to spell casual

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce casual

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does casual mean?

1. adjectiveRelaxed and informal, not done with great effort, seriousness, or formality.
2. adjectiveEmployed or occurring on an irregular, occasional, or temporary basis rather than permanently.

Casual in a sentence

• The office allows casual clothing on Fridays.

• The cafe hired several casual staff for the busy summer months.

• He gave a casual shrug when asked about the deadline.

• As a casual worker she had no guaranteed weekly hours.

Where does casual come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin casualis, meaning 'happening by chance', which was built on casus, literally 'a falling' or 'an occurrence', from the verb cadere 'to fall'. The idea behind it is that something casual simply falls out by accident rather than being planned, so the earliest English uses in the late 1300s carried the sense of 'occurring by chance' or 'accidental'. Over the centuries the meaning drifted from chance happenings toward a relaxed lack of seriousness, giving us the modern senses of unplanned, informal, and unconcerned. The very same casus root sits inside 'casualty' (originally a chance mishap) and even 'occasion' and 'cadence', all sharing the notion of falling or happening. The spelling trap is the middle, where the soft 's' sounds like 'zh' and the 'u' is barely heard, so writers can be tempted to drop or shuffle letters.

How the word is built

• cas- (from Latin casus: a fall, chance, occurrence)
• -ual (adjective suffix relating to)