cascade

UK/kæsˈkeɪd/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/kæsˈkæɪd/

cascade noun: a waterfall or series of small waterfalls.

Image: Martin Falbisoner, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

cascade (plural cascades)

A waterfall or series of small waterfalls.
- Now murm'ring soft, now roaring in cascade.1785, William Cowper, The Garden
- The silver brook […] pours the white cascade.1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Spirit of Poetry
(figuratively) A stream or sequence of a thing or things occurring as if falling like a cascade.
- The bride carried a cascade of roses and baby's breath.
- Non-stop violence, they feed us cascades / of non-believers dying in the sand.1996, Apoptygma Berzerk, “Non-stop Violence”, in 7 (Apoptygma Berzerk album)
A series of electrical (or other types of) components, the output of any one being connected to the input of the next.
A pattern typically performed with an odd number of props, where each prop is caught by the opposite hand.
(Internet) A sequence of absurd short messages posted to a newsgroup by different authors, each one responding to the most recent message and quoting the entire sequence to that point (with ever-increasing indentation).
- Don't you hate cascades? I hate cascades!1993, e.j.barker, “Disassociation”, in alt.slack (Usenet)
- Spark a usenet cascade of no less than 300 replies.1999, anonymous author, “CYBERLIAR SCAVENGER HUNT 1999”, in alt.test (Usenet)
A hairpiece for women consisting of curled locks or a bun attached to a firm base, used to create the illusion of fuller hair.
- A cascade can be added to one or both sides of the band to work well with longer hair.1998, Teresa Nelson, Creative Wedding Decorations You Can Make, →ISBN, page 10
A series of reactions in which the product of one becomes a reactant in the next

Verb

cascade (third-person singular simple present cascades, present participle cascading, simple past and past participle cascaded)

(intransitive) To fall as a waterfall or series of small waterfalls.
- Services between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh Waverley via Falkirk High are currently suspended, following a 30-metre breach of the Union Canal that occurred on August 12 after torrential rain and thunderstorms. The thousands of gallons of water that cascaded onto the railway line below...2020 August 26, “Network News: Major flood damage severs key Edinburgh-Glasgow rail artery”, in Rail, page 21
(transitive) To arrange in a stepped series like a waterfall.
- No matter how you tile or cascade the windows, each window's Minimize, Maximize, and Restore buttons work as usual.2001, Greg M Perry, Sams teach yourself Microsoft Windows XP in 24 hours
(intransitive) To occur as a causal sequence.
- Child folders inherit the configuration of their parent folder, meaning that configuration settings cascade down through an application's virtual folder hierarchy.2003, Adam Freeman, Allen Jones, Programming .NET Security
(transitive) To pass (something) down through a chain or system in a flow or series of movements.
- Relief arrived at Cardiff Canton depot on 1 September in the shape of the first of 12 Class 170 units cascaded from Greater Anglia.2019 October, Rhodri Clark, “TfW seeks PRM derogation for Class 37 sets”, in Modern Railways, page 87
- The railways have long cascaded stock from flagship routes to less prestigious services, and then eventually the backwaters of the network. In the past, they may even have passed into storage, ready to be dispatched to bolster routes to the coast, such as on summer Saturdays.2025 October 29, James Steward tells Joe Campbell, “Thriving on the stock exchange”, in RAIL, number 1047, page 44
(archaic, slang) To vomit.
- Then he began to choke. The next thing I knew, he cascaded onto my new carpet.2011, Amanda Quick, With This Ring

Proper noun capitalized: Cascade

Cascade

An unincorporated community in Plumas County, California.
An unincorporated community in Cascade-Chipita Park census-designated place, El Paso County, Colorado.
A small city, the county seat of Valley County, Idaho.
A city in Dubuque County and Jones County, Iowa.
A township in Kent County, Michigan.
A township in Olmsted County, Minnesota.
An unincorporated community in Wayne County, Missouri.
A town in Cascade County, Montana.
An unincorporated community in Cherry County, Nebraska.
An unincorporated community in the city of Berlin and town of Gorham, Coos County, New Hampshire.
An unincorporated community in Putnam County, Ohio.
A township in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania.

Show 9 more meaningsShow fewer meanings

An unincorporated community in Pittsylvania County, Virginia.
A neighbourhood of Seattle, Washington.
An unincorporated community in Preston County, West Virginia.
A village in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin.
A settlement in Hanover parish, Jamaica.
An administrative district on Mahé, Seychelles.
A locality near Burnt Pine, Norfolk Island.
A locality in the Bellingen council area, north-eastern New South Wales, Australia.
A town in the Shire of Esperance, Western Australia.

cascade meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

cascade in Hindi

to cascade, fall: झरना jharnā

cascade in Tamil

waterfall: விழுதொடர் viḻutoṭar

cascade in Marathi

कॅस्केड, कास्केड, कॅस्केड करण्यासाठी

cascade in Urdu

چادر, جھرنا, شلال

More languagesFewer languages

cascade in Bengali: জলপ্রপাত, ধারা
cascade in Telugu: సొన sona
cascade in Malayalam: സംഭവപരമ്പര sambhavaparampara, വെള്ളച്ചാട്ടം veḷḷaccāṭṭaṁ
cascade in Kannada: ಅಬ್ಬಿ abbi
cascade in Gujarati: કાસ્કેડ, કેસ્કેડ, કાસ્કેડે
cascade in Odia: କାସ୍କେଡ୍, କ୍ଯ଼ାସ୍କେଡ୍, କ୍ଯ଼ାସକେଡ୍
cascade in Nepali: क्यासकेड, क्यास्केड, कास्केड
cascade in Vietnamese: thác nước

Examples of cascade in a sentence

Flowering plants cascaded down the fronts of the buildings.
Beer cascaded frothily over the side of the glass.
I could hear him just around the corner, so I just started pre-firing until he walked right into the cascade of bullets.

All 40 example sentences with cascade

Forms of cascade

Noun
plural	cascades
Verb
third-person singular present	cascades
present participle	cascading
past participle	cascaded
past	cascaded

Plural of cascade: cascades

Origin of cascade

From French cascade, from Italian cascata, from cascare (“to fall”), from Vulgar Latin *cāsicāre, derived from Latin cadere, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱh₂d-.

Words formed from cascade

Phrases with cascade

Words that rhyme with cascade

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about cascade

What does cascade mean?: Cascade means a waterfall or series of small waterfalls.
What is cascade in Hindi?: Cascade in Hindi is झरना (jharnā). See Cascade meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is cascade?: Cascade can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cascade?: Cascade is pronounced /kæsˈkeɪd/ (UK).
What is the plural of cascade?: The plural of cascade is cascades.

Words near cascade in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: cascade (page history and authors); Cascade (page history and authors); झरना (Hindi) (page history and authors); cascade (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cascade (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cascade (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); సొన (Telugu) (page history and authors); cascade (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cascade (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); cascade (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-cascade.ogg.

Cite this entry: “cascade.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cascade. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.