casualty
KAZH-yoo-ul-tee
/ˈkæʒuəlti/
A person injured, killed, or rendered incapable of duty as a direct result of an accident, disaster, or military action.
Refers broadly to both injured victims and deaths resulting from an incident, not strictly dead individuals.
The story behind the word. The Latin verb 'cadere' means 'to fall' (which also gave us words like 'cadence' and 'decay'). In medieval Latin, 'casualitas' referred to random chance or unpredictable accidents—things that simply 'fell out' unexpectedly. By the 15th century, the word shifted in English to describe people who 'fell' in battle or accidents.
Word relationships
- victim: Victim focuses on the suffering or harm experienced by a person, whereas casualty is an objective measure of lost capacity or injury in incident reports.
- fatality: Fatality refers exclusively to deaths, whereas casualty encompasses both wounded and dead individuals.
- survivor: A survivor is someone who endures a life-threatening disaster unharmed or successfully recovers.
Commonly confused with
- causality: Causality refers to the relation between cause and effect, while casualty refers to an injured or killed person.
Word family
- casualties (noun): Plural form referring to multiple victims or losses.
Collocations
- casualty count
- mass casualty incident
- treat casualties
- civilian casualties
Idioms & expressions
- a casualty of war
- casualty of circumstances
Example sentences
- "Despite the severity of the structural collapse, rescue workers reported zero casualties among the office workers." Emergency response briefing
- "The medical team established a field hospital near the disaster site to treat casualties on location." Disaster management report
Memory hook
CASUALTY comes from CADERE (to fall) — someone who FELL in an accident or battle. Person injured or killed
When not to use
Do not treat casualty as synonymous only with 'fatality'; someone with a broken ankle in a disaster is also counted as a casualty.
Fun facts
- In British emergency medicine, hospital emergency rooms are historically called 'Casualty Departments' (or 'Cas').
Explore more words
fatality, incapacitate, Collateral damage, disabled, incident, Non-combatant
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