Other forms: caused, causing, causes
To cause something is to make it happen. Ice causes accidents, a blocked drain causes a flood, one badly judged joke causes a row that lasts all evening.
The verb leans towards trouble: you cause damage, delay, offence, confusion, chaos. For good results English reaches for bring about or lead to instead. The pattern worth learning is cause somebody to do something — the noise caused her to look up — and the noun stands right beside the verb: the cause of the fire, cause for concern. A cause is also something you believe in and work for, as in a good cause or fighting for the cause. And a lost cause is the effort nobody can save.
1verbcauseTo make something happen.~20%
“The storm caused serious damage to the roof.”
synonyms: bring about, trigger, provoke
2nounsourceThe thing that makes something happen.~66%
“Police are still looking for the cause of the fire.”
3nounreasonA reason or grounds for a feeling or an action.~7%
“There is no cause for alarm.”
synonyms: reason, grounds
4nounaimAn aim or movement that people believe in and work for.~7%
“She left most of the money to a good cause.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 16 sentences found in the wild and placed 15 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
cause is a reason.
Also accepted in games: bring about
Cause came through Old French from Latin causa, 'reason, sake, cause', and behind that Proto-Italic *kaussā, where the trail stops — nobody knows where the word started. Latin causa also meant a legal case, and it left English a whole family: accuse, excuse, recuse. French kept the older, vaguer sense of 'a thing' in chose, which is the same word wearing different clothes.
Proto-Italic
*kaussā
Latin
causa — reason, sake, cause
Old French
cause — a cause, a thing
Middle English
cause
English, today
cause
From Middle English cause (also with the sense of “a thing”), borrowed from Old French cause (“a cause, a thing”), borrowed from Latin causa (“reason, sake, cause”), from Proto-Italic kaussā, which is of unknown origin. a doublet of chose*. See accuse, excuse, recuse, ruse. Displaced native intinga.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA