cause : Idioms & Phrases

Index

cause celebre

  • noun an incident that attracts great public attention
WordNet

cause of action

  • noun a claim sufficient to demand judicial attention; the facts that give rise to right of action
WordNet

cause of death

  • noun the causal agent resulting in death
    killer.
    • heart disease is the biggest killer in the United States
WordNet

cause to be perceived

  • verb have perceptible qualities
WordNet

cause to sleep

  • verb make fall asleep
    • The soft music caused us to fall asleep
WordNet

Efficient cause

  • the agent or force that produces a change or redult.
Webster 1913

Exciting causes

  • (Med.), those which immediately produce disease, or those which excite the action of predisposing causes.
Webster 1913

Final cause

  • noun (philosophy) the end or purpose of a thing or process
WordNet
  • the end, design, or object, for which anything is done.
Webster 1913

first cause

  • noun an agent that is the cause of all things but does not itself have a cause
    primum mobile; prime mover.
    • God is the first cause
WordNet

Formal cause

  • the elements of a conception which make the conception or the thing conceived to be what it is; or the idea viewed as a formative principle and coöperating with the matter.
Webster 1913

lost cause

  • noun a defeated cause or a cause for which defeat is inevitable
WordNet

Material cause

  • that of which anything is made.
Webster 1913

Occasional cause

  • (Metaph.), some circumstance preceding an effect which, without being the real cause, becomes the occasion of the action of the efficient cause; thus, the act of touching gunpowder with fire is the occasional, but not the efficient, cause of an explosion.
Webster 1913

Onerous cause

  • (Scots Law), a good and legal consideration; opposed to gratuitous.
Webster 1913

Predisponent causes

  • . (Med.) See Predisposing causes, under Predispose.
Webster 1913

Predisposing causes

  • (Med.), causes which render the body liable to disease; predisponent causes.
Webster 1913

Probable cause

  • noun (law) evidence sufficient to warrant an arrest or search and seizure
    • a magistrate determined that there was probable cause to search the house
WordNet
  • (Law), a reasonable ground of presumption that a charge is, or my be, well founded.
Webster 1913

Proximate cause

  • . (a) A cause which immediately precedes and produces the effect, as distinguished from the remote, mediate, or predisposing cause. I. Watts. (b) That which in ordinary natural sequence produces a specific result, no independent disturbing agencies intervening.
Webster 1913

To make, ∨ cause, the face to shine upon

  • to be propitious to; to be gracious to.
Webster 1913

To make common cause with

  • to join with in purposes and aims.
  • to join or ally one's self with.
Webster 1913