casualty

American  

[kazh-oo-uhl-tee] / ˈkæʒ u əl ti /

noun

• casualties
  plural

1. Military.

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

   2. 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.

3. 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.

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

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casualty British  

/ ˈkæʒjʊəltɪ /

noun

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

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

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

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• casualties
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of casualty

First recorded in 1375–1425; casual + -ty ²; replacing late Middle English casuelte, equivalent to casuel ( casual ) + -te -ty ²

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Explanation

In wartime, you'll hear the word casualty used often for someone killed or injured. But casualty can also refer to deaths or injuries suffered in an accident or some other unfortunate event. The term "casualties of war" has been around for a while and refers to the ugly downside of military victory. Anyone who loses life or limb, either in the fighting or as a civilian, is called a casualty. You can also use this word figuratively: if a local elementary school loses funding for their art classes and after-school activities, you can say that the students are casualties of budget cuts.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

casualty casualties

And when that happens, gold and silver prices can “temporarily suffer as a casualty of those selloffs,” he said.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 17, 2026

To prepare for combat, cadets should learn land navigation, weapons handling, communications, casualty care and small-unit tactics as well as field exercises.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026

Whilst most of the plants were saved in the process of moving, there was one major casualty - the Sabal palm tree which was over 200 years old.

From BBC ● Oct. 1, 2026

The demolition has begun at Bengaluru's Urvashi Cinema, once a 1,200-seat movie palace where generations of filmgoers cheered and whistled, another casualty of India's vanishing single-screen era.

From Barron's ● Sep. 27, 2026

Instead, everyone would be listed by date of casualty, forever enshrined with the names of their buddies who were also mortally wounded that day.

From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge

Under its strategy, an extensive “autonomous zone” would be established so that drones and ground robots could blunt a Russian attack without extensive allied casualties.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026

No casualties have been reported yet, however five people are missing.

From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026

After congratulating the crew on completing thousands of combat missions with “zero casualties, zero flight mishaps, and zero working toilets,” Jost’s Hegseth offered an update on developments back home.

From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2026

It did not say if there were casualties there or provide details of the damage.

From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026

He told Rebecca he was going to build a national memorial engraved with the names of all the American casualties of the war right in the center of Washington, DC.

From "Boots on the Ground: America's War in Vietnam" by Elizabeth Partridge

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