Word.ws English Dictionary

cast a shadow

cast a shadow verb: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cast, shadow.

Verb

cast a shadow (third-person singular simple present casts a shadow, present participle casting a shadow, simple past and past participle cast a shadow)

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cast, shadow.
  2. (figuratively, idiomatic, often a tragic one) To dampen future events.
    • With the descent of the cold war, relations between the two countries (for this is, to all intents and purposes, what they became after the end of the war) were almost completely broken off, with whole families split for the ensuing decades, some for ever. This event and its after-effects, along...2011 December 19, Kerry Brown, “Kim Jong-il obituary”, in The Guardian

Forms of cast a shadow

third-person singular presentcasts a shadow
present participlecasting a shadow
past participlecast a shadow
pastcast a shadow

Questions about cast a shadow

What does cast a shadow mean?
Cast a shadow means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cast, shadow.
What part of speech is cast a shadow?
Cast a shadow is a verb.
What is the past tense of cast a shadow?
The past tense of cast a shadow is cast a shadow.

Words near cast a shadow in the dictionary

  1. Cassville
  2. cassythine
  3. cast
  4. cast a chill
  5. cast a pall
  6. cast a shadow
  7. cast about
  8. cast accounts
  9. cast adrift
  10. cast anchor
  11. cast around

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cast a shadow (page history and authors). 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:

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

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