Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CARV'ING, ppr.

Cutting, dividing, as meat; cutting in stone, wood or metal; apportioning; distributing.

CAR-Y-A'TES, or CAR-Y-AT'I-DES, n.

In architecture, figures of women dressed in long robes, after the Asiatic manner, serving to support entablatures. The Athenians had been long at war with the Caryans; the latter being at length vanquished and their wives led captive, the Greeks, to perpetuate this event, erected trophies, in which figures of women, dressed in the Caryatic manner, were used to support entablatures. Other female figures were afterward used in the same manner, but they were called by the same name. – Encyc. They were called Caryatides, from Carya, a city in the Peloponnesus, which sided with the Persians, and on that account was sacked by the other Greeks, its males butchered, and its females reduced to slavery. – Cyc.

CAR-Y-AT'IC, a.

Pertaining to the Caryans or Caryatides.

CAR-Y-O-PHYL'LE-OUS, a. [Gr. καρυον, a nut, and φυλλον, a leaf.]

Having five petals with long claws, in a tubular calyx; applied to flowers. – Eaton.

CAR-Y-OPH'YL-LOID, n. [Gr. καρυοφυλλον, clove-gilly-flower. Infra.]

A species of mica, the scales of which are concentric and perpendicular. [Obs.] – Cronstedt. Nicholson.

CA-RY-OP'SIS, n. [Gr. καρυα, a walnut, and οπτω, to see.]

In botany, a pericarp which is one-celled, superior, indehiscent, dry, with the integuments of the seed cohering inseparably with the endocarp, so that the two are undistinguishable in the ovarian state, evincing its compound nature by two or more stigmas, but nevertheless unilocular, having but one ovule, as wheat and barley, &c. – Lindley.

CA-SARC'A, n.

A fowl of the genus Anas, called also Ruddy-goose, larger than a mallard, found in Russia and Siberia. – Encyc.

CASC'A-BEL, n. [Port. cascavel; Sp. cascabel, a little bell, button or knob at the end of a cannon.]

The knob or pommelion of a cannon. – Mar. Dict.

CAS-CADE', n. [Fr. cascade; Sp. cascada; It. cascata, from cascare, to fall.]

A waterfall; a steep fall or flowing of water over a precipice, in a river or natural stream; or an artificial fall in a garden. The word is applied to falls that are less than a cataract.

CAS-CAL'HO, n. [Port.]

In Brazil, a deposit of pebbles, gravel and sand in which the diamond is usually found. – Port. Dict. Cleaveland.

CAS-CA-RIL'LA, n.

The bark of a tree called Croton Cascarilla, a powerful tonic.

CASE, n.¹ [Fr. caisse; Sp. and Port. caxa, a box or chest; It. cassa; D. kas; Dan. kasse. The French caisse is the Sp. caxa. The Spanish caxeta, a gasket, seems to be a derivative of caxa, and if so, the fact indicates that caxa is from an Oriental root, signifying to tie or bind, and that the word originally denoted a bag made of skin, like a bottle, or a basket made of osiers interwoven, like fisc, fiscus. Qu. Syr. ܟܫܐ‎ casha, to bind or tie.]

1. A covering, box or sheath; that which incloses or contains; as, a case for knives; a case for books; a watch case; a printer's case; a pillow case.
2. The outer part of a building. – Addison.
3. A certain quantity; as, a case of crown glass.
4. A building unfurnished. [Not used.]

CASE, n.² [Fr. cas; It. caso; Sp. and Port. caso; Ir. cas; L. casus, from cado, to fall.]

1. Literally, that which falls, comes, or happens; an event. Hence, the particular state, condition, or circumstances that befall a person, or in which he is placed; as, make the case your own; this is the case with my friend; this is his present case.
2. The state of the body, with respect to health or disease; as, a case of fever; he is in a consumptive case; his case is desperate. To be in good case, is to be fat, and this phrase is customarily abridged, to be in case; applied to beasts, but not to men, except in a sense rather ludicrous.
3. A question; a state of facts involving a question for discussion or decision; as, the lawyer stated the case.
4. A cause or suit in court; as, the case was tried at the last term. In this sense, case is nearly synonymous with cause, whose primary sense is nearly the same.
5. In grammar, the inflection of nouns, or a change of termination, to express a difference of relation in that word to others, or to the thing represented. The variation of nouns and adjectives is called declension; both case and declension signifying falling or leaning from the first state of the word. Thus, liber is a book; libri, of a book; libro, to a book. In other words, case denotes a variation in the termination of a noun, to show how the noun acts upon the verb with which it is connected, or is acted upon by it, or by an agent. The cases, except the nominative, are called oblique cases. In case, is a phrase denoting condition or supposition literally, in the event or contingency; if it should so fall out or happen. Put the case, suppose the event, or a certain state of things. Action on the case, in law, is an action in which the whole cause of complaint is set out in the writ. – Blackstone.

CASE, v.i.

To put cases. [Not in use.] – L'Estrange.

CASE, v.t.

1. To cover with a case; to surround with any material that shall inclose or defend.
2. To put in a case or box.
3. To strip off a case, covering, or the skin. [Unusual.] – Shak.

CAS'ED, pp.

Covered with a case.

CASE'-HARD-EN, v.t.

To harden the outer part or superficies, as of iron, by converting it into steel. This may be done by putting the iron into an iron box, with a cement, and exposing it, for some hours, to a red heat. – Encyc.

CASE'-HARD-EN-ED, pp.

Having the outside hardened.

CASE'-HARD-EN-ING, ppr.

Hardening the outer part.

CA'SE-IC, a. [L. caseus, cheese.]

Denoting the acid of cheese.

CASE'-KNIFE, n.

A large table knife, often kept in a case.

CASE'-MATE, n. [Fr. casemate; It. casamatta; Sp. and Port. casamata; from casa, a house.]

1. In fortification, a vault of mason's work in the flank of a bastion, next to the curtain, somewhat inclined toward the capital of the bastion, serving as a battery to defend the face of the opposite bastion, and the moat or ditch. – Chambers.
2. A well, with its subterraneous branches, dug in the passage of the bastion, till the miner is heard at work, and air given to the mine. – Harris.

CASE'-MA-TED, a.

Furnished with a case-mate. – Kirby.

CASE'MENT, n. [It. casamento, a large house.]

1. A hollow molding, usually one sixth or one fourth of a circle. – Encyc.
2. A little movable window, usually within a larger, made to turn and open on hinges. – Encyc.

CAS'E-OUS, a. [L. caseus, cheese.]

Like cheese; having the qualities of cheese.