Word.ws English Dictionary

casual

Syllables: ca·su·alUK/ˈkaʒ(uː)əl/US/ˈkæʒ(u)əl/

casual adjective: happening by chance.

Adjective

casual (comparative more casual, superlative most casual)

  1. Happening by chance.
    • They only had casual meetings.
    • casual breaks, in the general system1819 June 23 – 1820 September 13, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “(please specify the title)”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van...
  2. Coming without regularity; occasional or incidental.
    • The purchase of donuts was just a casual expense.
    • a constant habit, rather than a casual gesture1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter 9, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    ad hoc
  3. Employed irregularly.
    • He was just a casual worker.
    • This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything. In a moment she had dropped to the level of a casual labourer.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
  4. Careless.
    • I removed my jacket and threw it casually over the back of the settee.2007, Nick Holland, The Girl on the Bus, page 117
  5. Happening or coming to pass without design.
    • It was a casual sneer, obviously one of a long line. There was hatred behind it, but of a quiet, chronic type, nothing new or unduly virulent, and he was taken aback by the flicker of amazed incredulity that passed over the younger man's ravaged face.1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 8, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
    • Hogan assumed the entire creek bed was to be played as a casual hazard, moved his ball out and assessed himself a one-stroke penalty.2012, Jeff Miller, Grown at Glen Garden: Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, and the Little Texas Golf Course that Propelled Them to Stardom
    Antonyms:
    expected, scheduled
  6. (usage, or milieu) Informal; relaxed.
    • tone in casual interactions
    Synonyms:
    colloquial
    Antonyms:
    strict, formal, official
  7. Designed for informal or everyday use.
    • pants in the casual wear collection
    Synonyms:
    cas, informal

Noun

casual (plural casuals)

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, UK) A worker who is only working for a company occasionally, not as its permanent employee.
  2. A worker who is doing a particular type of job temporarily, not as a lifetime career.
    • Of the scavagers proper there are, as in all classes of unskilled labour, that is to say, of labour which requires no previous apprenticeship, and to which any one can “turn his hand” on an emergency, two distinct orders of workmen, “the regulars and casuals” to adopt the trade terms; that is to...1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861
  3. A soldier temporarily at a place of duty, usually en route to another place of duty.
  4. (UK, historical) A member of a group of football hooligans who wear expensive designer clothing to avoid police attention; see casual (subculture).
    • At 15, he became a casual: one of the label-wearing, wedge-flicking, swaggering hooligan peacock boys who dominated the north-west when I was growing up. Casuals were working-class lads (called Perry boys in Manchester) who loved football, fighting and brilliant sportswear.2019 September 14, Miranda Sawyer, “Mark Leckey: ‘There has to be a belief that art has this power, this charisma'”, in The Guardian
    Synonyms:
    dresser, Perry boy
  5. (UK, historical) One who receives relief for a night in a parish to which he or she does not belong; a vagrant in the casual ward.
    • During the great prevalence of vagrancy, the cost of the sick was far greater than the expense of relief. In the quarter ending June 1848, no less than 322 casuals were under medical treatment, either in the workhouse of the Wandsworth and Clapham union or at the London Fever Hospital.1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, published 1861
  6. (derogatory, informal) A player of casual games.
    • The devs dumbed the game down so the casuals could enjoy it.
  7. (slang) A person whose engagement with media is relaxed or superficial.
    • Casuals outnumbered regulars in the art-house audience two to one.1972, Lee C. Garrison, "The Needs of Motion Picture Audiences", California Management Review, Volume 15, Issue 2, Winter 1972, page 149
    • Most often, when a series is marketed toward casuals, the loyals feel that their interests and needs are not being met.2010, Jennifer Gillan, Television and New Media: Must-Click TV, page 16
  8. (UK, dated) A tramp.
    • I was a boy in 1922 or 1923, when buses first started to run between the village and the town; there were tramps, casuals as they were called; the whole pattern of my boyhood was knit into a very loaded atmosphere of human character.1983, Reg Butler, Reg Butler, London: Tate Gallery London, page 14
  9. (in plural) Shoes suitable for everyday use, as opposed to more formal footwear.
    • Next spring you’ll see more women than ever wearing “casuals” and “flats,” the shoes with the wedge heels or no heels at all.1948 December, “Shoes: Competition Is Back”, in Kiplinger Magazine, page 47, column 2
    • In girls wearing casuals, ugly hypertrophied skin over the heels was frequently noted, probably due to the loose shoe moving as they walked.1959, The Medical Officer, page 158

casual meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

casual in Tamil

இடைவரவான, தற்செயலான, திட்டமிடப்படாத, திட்டமிடப்படாத், முயற்சியற்ற, தற்செயல்

casual in Urdu

بےتکلف, بےقائدہ, غیرمنتظر, اتفاقی

casual in Bengali

আকস্মিক, নৈমিত্তিক, খুচরা, অপ্রত্যাশিত, উদ্দেশ্যহীন

casual in Malayalam

ആകസ്മികമായ, മുൻവിചാരിക്കാത്ത, യാദൃശ്ചികം
More languagesFewer languages
casual in Kannada
ಒಮ್ಮೊಮ್ಮೆ ನಡುವೆ, ಹಮ್ಮಿ ಕೊಳ್ಳದು, ಆಕಸ್ಮಿಕ, ಸಾಂದರ್ಭಿಕ
casual in Gujarati
કેઝ્યુઅલ
casual in Odia
ନୈମିତ୍ତିକ

Examples of casual in a sentence

  • I put on some red lip and a casual print dress.
  • You can't be so casual. You're in the major leagues now.
  • I stick to casual because ranked lobbies are way too sweaty.

All 40 example sentences with casual

Synonyms of casual

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of casual

Forms of casual

Adjective
comparativemore casual
superlativemost casual
alternative formcasuall
alternative formcazh
Noun
pluralcasuals

Origin of casual

From Middle French casuel, from Late Latin cāsuālis (“happening by chance”), from Latin cāsus (“event”) (English case), from cadere (“to fall”) (whence English cadence).

Words formed from casual

Phrases with casual

Questions about casual

What does casual mean?
Casual means happening by chance.
What is casual in Tamil?
Casual in Tamil is இடைவரவான, தற்செயலான, திட்டமிடப்படாத. See Casual meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is casual?
Casual can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce casual?
Casual is pronounced /ˈkaʒ(uː)əl/ (UK).

Words near casual in the dictionary

  1. castworthier
  2. castworthiest
  3. castworthy
  4. casu martzu
  5. casu marzu
  6. casual
  7. casual alien
  8. casual aliens
  9. casual Friday
  10. casual Fridays
  11. casual game

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: casual (page history and authors); casual (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); casual (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); casual (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); casual (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); casual (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); casual (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); casual (Odia, 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: EN-AU ck1 casual.ogg.

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