Etymology

From FrenchCategory:English terms derived from French#CASCADE cascade, from ItalianCategory:English terms derived from Italian#CASCADE cascata, from cascare (“to fall”), from Vulgar LatinCategory:English terms derived from Vulgar Latin#CASCADE *cāsicāre, derived from LatinCategory:English terms derived from Latin#CASCADE cadere, ultimately from Proto-Indo-EuropeanCategory:English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European#CASCADE *ḱh₂d-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kæsˈkeɪd/Category:English 2-syllable words#CASCADECategory:English terms with IPA pronunciation#CASCADE

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

  Category:English terms with audio pronunciation#CASCADE
• Rhymes: -eɪdCategory:Rhymes:English/eɪd#CASCADECategory:Rhymes:English/eɪd/2 syllables#CASCADE

Noun

cascade (plural cascades)Category:English lemmas#CASCADECategory:English nouns#CASCADECategory:English countable nouns#CASCADECategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CASCADECategory:Pages with entries#CASCADECategory:Pages with 5 entries#CASCADE

1. A waterfall or series of small waterfalls.
   • 1785, William Cowper, The Garden:

     Now murm'ring soft, now roaring in cascade.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

     Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
   • 1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Spirit of Poetry:

     The silver brook […] pours the white cascade.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

     Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
   • 2006 July 23, Allen G. Breed, Binaj Gurubacharya, “A Climber's Highest Ambition Twice, Briton David Sharp Attempted To Conquer the World's Tallest Mountain. Then He Made His Third Try.”, in The Washington Post‎, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 August 2016‎:

     In the first week of May, Sharp began his summit push.
     He scaled the North Col, an ice cascade riddled with gaping crevasses, and established a camp at about 25,920 feet, where tents often must be pitched at 45-degree angles. But when he awoke on the third morning, it was snowing and extremely windy, and Sharp decided to abandon the attempt.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

2. (figuratively) A stream or sequence of a thing or things occurring as if falling like a cascade.
   • 2001, Richard Restak, The Secret Life of the Brain, Joseph Henry Press

     The rise in serotonin levels sets off a cascade of chemical events

   • 2019 October, “Funding for 20tph East London Line service”, in Modern Railways, page 18:

     Provision was made for this cascade of units when TfL [Transport for London] exercised an option in its order for Class 710s from Bombardier for an extra 6x5-car units and 3x4-car units: these would be used on the North London line and release '378s' for the East London line.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

3. A series of electrical (or other types of) components, the output of any one being connected to the input of the next.

   Coordinate term: daisy chain

4. (jugglingCategory:en:Juggling#CASCADE) A pattern typically performed with an odd number of props, where each prop is caught by the opposite hand.
5. (InternetCategory:en:Internet#CASCADE) A sequence of absurd short messages posted to a newsgroup by different authors, each one responding to the most recent message and quoting the entire sequence to that point (with ever-increasing indentation).
   • 1993, e.j.barker, “Disassociation”, in alt.slack (Usenet):

     Don't you hate cascades? I hate cascades!

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

   • 1999, anonymous author, “CYBERLIAR SCAVENGER HUNT 1999”, in alt.test (Usenet):

     Spark a usenet cascade of no less than 300 replies.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

   • 2004, swt, “ARRR!”, in alt.religion.kibology (Usenet):

     Anyway. I didn't mean to say that everyone who posts URLs is bad and wrong and should lose their breathing privileges. Just that I was getting weary of look-at-this-link posts, sort of like some people get sick of cascades.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

6. A hairpiece for women consisting of curled locks or a bun attached to a firm base, used to create the illusion of fuller hair.
   • 1998, Teresa Nelson, Creative Wedding Decorations You Can Make, →ISBN, page 10:

     A cascade can be added to one or both sides of the band to work well with longer hair.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

7. (chemistry) A series of reactions in which the product of one becomes a reactant in the next

Verb

cascade (third-person singular simple present cascades, present participle cascading, simple past and past participle cascaded)Category:English lemmas#CASCADECategory:English verbs#CASCADECategory:English entries with incorrect language header#CASCADECategory:Pages with entries#CASCADECategory:Pages with 5 entries#CASCADE

1. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#CASCADE) To fall as a waterfall or series of small waterfalls.
   • 2020 August 26, “Network News: Major flood damage severs key Edinburgh-Glasgow rail artery”, in Rail, page 21:

     Services between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh Waverley via Falkirk High are currently suspended, following a 30-metre breach of the Union Canal that occurred on August 12 after torrential rain and thunderstorms. The thousands of gallons of water that cascaded onto the railway line below washed away track, ballast and overhead line equipment, and undermined embankments along a 300-metre section of Scotland's busiest rail link.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

2. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#CASCADE) To arrange in a stepped series like a waterfall.
   • 2001, Greg M Perry, Sams teach yourself Microsoft Windows XP in 24 hours:

     No matter how you tile or cascade the windows, each window's Minimize, Maximize, and Restore buttons work as usual.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

3. (intransitiveCategory:English intransitive verbs#CASCADE) To occur as a causal sequence.
   • 2003, Adam Freeman, Allen Jones, Programming .NET Security:

     Child folders inherit the configuration of their parent folder, meaning that configuration settings cascade down through an application's virtual folder hierarchy.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

     Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned
4. (transitiveCategory:English transitive verbs#CASCADE) To pass (something) down through a chain or system in a flow or series of movements.
   • 2019 October, Rhodri Clark, “TfW seeks PRM derogation for Class 37 sets”, in Modern Railways, page 87:

     Relief arrived at Cardiff Canton depot on 1 September in the shape of the first of 12 Class 170 units cascaded from Greater Anglia.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

   • 2025 October 29, James Steward tells Joe Campbell, “Thriving on the stock exchange”, in RAIL, number 1047, page 44:

     The railways have long cascaded stock from flagship routes to less prestigious services, and then eventually the backwaters of the network. In the past, they may even have passed into storage, ready to be dispatched to bolster routes to the coast, such as on summer Saturdays.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

5. (archaicCategory:English terms with archaic senses#CASCADE, slangCategory:English slang#CASCADE) To vomit.^[1]
   • 2011, Amanda Quick, With This Ring:

     Then he began to choke. The next thing I knew, he cascaded onto my new carpet.

     Category:English terms with quotations#CASCADE

     Category:Quotation templates to be cleaned

References

Anagrams

• saccade

Etymology

Borrowing from FrenchCategory:Dutch terms borrowed from French#CASCADECategory:Dutch terms derived from French#CASCADE cascade, from ItalianCategory:Dutch terms derived from Italian#CASCADE cascata.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌkɑsˈkaː.də/Category:Dutch terms with IPA pronunciation#CASCADE

• Audio:

  (file)

  Category:Dutch terms with audio pronunciation#CASCADE
• Hyphenation: cas‧ca‧de
• Rhymes: -aːdəCategory:Rhymes:Dutch/aːdə#CASCADECategory:Rhymes:Dutch/aːdə/3 syllables#CASCADE

Noun

cascade f (plural cascades or cascaden, no diminutive)Category:Dutch lemmas#CASCADECategory:Dutch nouns#CASCADECategory:Dutch nouns with plural in -s#CASCADECategory:Dutch nouns with plural in -en#CASCADECategory:Dutch entries with incorrect language header#CASCADECategory:Dutch feminine nouns#CASCADECategory:Pages with entries#CASCADECategory:Pages with 5 entries#CASCADE

1. cascade (waterfall or series of small waterfalls)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kas.kad/Category:French 2-syllable words#CASCADECategory:French terms with IPA pronunciation#CASCADE

• Audio:

  (file)

  Category:French terms with audio pronunciation#CASCADE

• Audio (France (Saint-Maurice-de-Beynost)):

  (file)

  Category:French terms with audio pronunciation#CASCADE

• Audio (France (Toulouse)):

  (file)

  Category:French terms with audio pronunciation#CASCADE

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

  Category:French terms with audio pronunciation#CASCADE

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

  Category:French terms with audio pronunciation#CASCADE

Etymology 1

Borrowed from ItalianCategory:French terms borrowed from Italian#CASCADECategory:French terms derived from Italian#CASCADE cascata, from cascare (“to fall”).

Etymology 2

Further reading

• “cascade”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Anagrams

• accédas, saccade, saccadé

Verb

cascadeCategory:Galician non-lemma forms#CASCADECategory:Galician verb forms#CASCADECategory:Galician entries with incorrect language header#CASCADECategory:Pages with entries#CASCADECategory:Pages with 5 entries#CASCADE

1. second-person plural imperative of cascar

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [kaˈskade]Category:Romanian terms with IPA pronunciation#CASCADE

Noun

cascade fCategory:Romanian non-lemma forms#CASCADECategory:Romanian noun forms#CASCADECategory:Romanian entries with incorrect language header#CASCADECategory:Pages with entries#CASCADECategory:Pages with 5 entries#CASCADE

1. inflection of cascadă:
   1. indefinite plural
   2. indefinite genitive/dative singular