caso

Caso is a noun in Spanish and Portuguese that denotes a case, instance, or occurrence, and it also refers to a situation or set of circumstances. It is used to name concrete examples, such as a medical case (un caso de fiebre), a legal matter (un caso penal), or a particular event (un caso aislado). In everyday language, it also appears in phrases like en caso de and em caso de, meaning “in case of,” as well as tal caso, “such a case.”

Etymology and cognates: Caso derives from the Latin casus, meaning an event, accident, or fortune. It has close cognates in other Romance languages, including Italian caso and French cas, and shares the same semantic field as the English word case.

Usage and context: In law, caso refers to lawsuits or criminal proceedings; in medicine, it denotes a patient’s instance or a clinical example (caso clínico). In journalism and discussion, it is used to point to a specific instance or to illustrate a point (un caso real/estudio de caso). In both Spanish and Portuguese, the word forms plural as casos and serves in phrases that describe contingencies or categories, such as “en caso de emergencia” or “casos de estudo.”

Notes: While primarily a common noun, caso also appears in various fixed expressions and titles, and its exact nuance can shift with modifiers (real, aislado, típico).