casualty

From casual, from Middle French casuel, from Late Latin cāsuālis (“happening by chance”), from Latin cāsus (“event”) (English case), from cadere (“to fall”)[1]. Originally meaning “a chance event” (compare casual, as in “casual encounter”), it developed a negative meaning as “an unfortunate event”, especially the loss of a person.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkaʒ(ʊ)əlti/

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casualty (countable and uncountable, plural casualties)

1. Something that happens by chance, especially an unfortunate event; an accident, a disaster.
   • 1756, Samuel Johnson, “The Life of Sir Thomas Browne” in Thomas Browne, Christian Morals, 2nd edition, London: J. Payne, p. xx,

     The course of his education was like that of others, such as put him little in the way of extraordinary casualties.

2. A person suffering from injuries or who has been killed due to an accident or through an act of violence.
3. (proscribed) Specifically, a person who has been killed (not only injured) due to an accident or through an act of violence; a fatality.
4. (military) A person in military service who becomes unavailable for duty, for any reason (notably death, injury, illness, capture, or desertion).
5. (Britain) The accident and emergency department of a hospital.
6. An incidental charge or payment.
7. (obsolete) Chance nature; randomness.
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970, (please specify |partition=1, 2, or 3):

     , NYRB 2001, vol.1, p.327-8:

     The non-necessary [causes] follow; of which, saith Fuchsius, no art can be made, by reason of their uncertainty, casualty, and multitude […]

The term casualty is sometimes used to mean “a killed person”; in more careful use this is referred to as a fatality, and casualty instead means “killed or injured”.

(hospital's accident and emergency):

• emergency / emergency room / emergency department / emergency ward / E. R./E.R./ER
• casualty department / casualty ward
• accident and emergency / A&E

• fatality

• casualty department
• casualty event
• casualty ward

• casual