DIMENSIONS: CONTEXT / Relationship
R E F E R E N C E S
Cause n. 1. a person or thing that acts, happens, or exists in such a way that some specific thing happens as a result; the producer of an effect: You have been the cause of much anxiety. What was the cause of the accident? 2. the reason or motive for some human action: This news was a cause for rejoicing. 3. good or sufficient reason: to complain without cause; to be dismissed for cause. 4. Law. a. a ground of legal action. b. a case for judicial decision. 5. any subject of discussion or debate. 6. the ideal or goal, or the set of these, to which a person or group is dedicated: the Socialist cause; the cause of better housing. 7. the general wellfare of a person or group, seen as the subject of concern either to themselves or to others: liberal support for the cause of the American Negro. 8. Philos. a. the end or purpose for which a thing is done or produced. b. Aristotelianism, any of the things necessary for the movement or the coming into being of a thing. 9. make common cause with, to unite with in a joint effort; work together with for the same end. -v.t. 10. to be the cause of; bring about [ME < L caus(a) reason, sake, case]
-Syn. 1. Cause, Occasion refer to the starting of effects into motion. A Cause is an agency, perhaps acting through a long time, or a long-standing situation, that produces an effect: The cause of the quarrel between the two men was jealousy. An Occasion is an event that provides an opportunity for the effect to become evident, or perhaps promotes its becoming evident: The occasion was the fact that one man's wages were increased. 3. See reason. 10. effect, make, create, produce.
Cause-and-effect adj. noting a relationship between actions or events such that one or more are the result of the other or others.
Cause célèbre any controversy that attracts great public attention. [< F: lit., famous case]
Causal 1. of, constituting, or implying a cause; a causal force. 2. Gram. expressing a cause, as a conjunction.
Causality n. 1. the relation of cause and effect. 2. causal quality or agency.
Causation n. 1. the action of causing or producing. 2. the relation of cause to effect. 3. anything that produces and effect; cause.
[Urdang, Laurence, ed. Random House Dictionary of The English Language. New York: Random House, 1968.]
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