casualty

[ kazh-oo-uhl-tee ]
See synonyms for casualty on Thesaurus.com
noun,plural cas·u·al·ties.
  1. Military.

    • a member of the armed forces lost to service through death, wounds, sickness, capture, or because their whereabouts or condition cannot be determined.

    • casualties, loss in numerical strength through any cause, as death, wounds, sickness, capture, or desertion.

  2. one who is injured or killed in an accident: There were no casualties in the traffic accident.

  1. any person, group, thing, etc., that is harmed or destroyed as a result of some act or event: Their house was a casualty of the fire.

  2. a serious accident, especially one involving bodily injury or death.

Origin of casualty

1
First recorded in 1375–1425; casual + -ty2; replacing late Middle English casuelte, equivalent to casuel (see casual) + -te -ty2

Words that may be confused with casualty

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use casualty in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for casualty

casualty

/ (ˈkæʒjʊəltɪ) /


nounplural -ties
  1. a serviceman who is killed, wounded, captured, or missing as a result of enemy action

  2. a person who is injured or killed in an accident

  1. a hospital department in which victims of accidents, violence, etc, are treated

  2. anything that is lost, damaged, or destroyed as the result of an accident, etc

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012