CASE

A box, sheath, or covering; as, a case for holding goods; a case for spectacles; the case of a watch; the case (capsule) of a cartridge; a case (cover) for a book.

A box and its contents; the quantity contained in a box; as, a case of goods; a case of instruments.

A shallow tray divided into compartments or "boxes" for holding type.

An inclosing frame; a casing; as, a door case; a window case.

A small fissure which admits water to the workings. Knight.

To cover or protect with, or as with, a case; to inclose. The man who, cased in steel, had passed whole days and nights in the saddle. Prescott.

To strip the skin from; as, to case a box. [Obs.]

Chance; accident; hap; opportunity. [Obs.] By aventure, or sort, or cas. Chaucer.

That which befalls, comes, or happens; an event; an instance; a circumstance, or all the circumstamces; condition; state of things; affair; as, a strange case; a case of injustice; the case of the Indian tribes. In any case thou shalt deliver him the pledge. Deut. xxiv. 13. If the case of the man be so with his wife. Matt. xix. 10. And when a lady's in the case. You know all other things give place. Gay. You think this madness but a common case. Pope. I am in case to justle a constable, Shak.

A patient under treatment; an instance of sickness or injury; as, ten cases of fever; also, the history of a disease or injury. A proper remedy in hypochondriacal cases. Arbuthnot.

The matters of fact or conditions involved in a suit, as distinguished from the questions of law; a suit or action at law; a cause. Let us consider the reason of the case, for nothing is law that is not reason. Sir John Powell. Not one case in the reports of our courts. Steele.

One of the forms, or the inflections or changes of form, of a noun, pronoun, or adjective, which indicate its relation to other words, and in the aggregate constitute its declension; the relation which a noun or pronoun sustains to some other word. Case is properly a falling off from the nominative or first state of word; the name for which, however, is now, by extension of its signification, applied also to the nominative. J. W. Gibbs.

To propose hypothetical cases. [Obs.] "Casing upon the matter." L'Estrange.