as in to create
to be the cause of (a situation, action, or state of mind)
the ice storm caused a massive power outage
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
1
as in reason
someone or something responsible for a result
the much-debated causes of the war
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in movement
a series of activities undertaken to achieve a goal
joined the freedom fighters' cause as a young man
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
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Recent Examples of cause
Meg Tanaka, Los Angeles Times, 16 Apr. 2026
The Chairwoman, a billionaire many times over, recently added the country club to her massive portfolio, and her arrival to oversee renovations causes quite a stir.
—Ben Travers, IndieWire, 16 Apr. 2026
Lauren Penington, Denver Post, 10 Apr. 2026
The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office said his cause of death could not be determined without further testing.
—Los Angeles Times, 10 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for cause
Verb
Benjamin Henwood, a USC social work researcher and co-author of the paper, said that kind of instability can cause people to lose medications, documents, belongings and connections to outreach workers and care providers.
—Meg Tanaka, Los Angeles Times, 16 Apr. 2026
The Chairwoman, a billionaire many times over, recently added the country club to her massive portfolio, and her arrival to oversee renovations causes quite a stir.
—Ben Travers, IndieWire, 16 Apr. 2026
Noun
The Pueblo County Coroner will release the woman’s name, as well as her cause and manner of death, at a later date.
—Lauren Penington, Denver Post, 10 Apr. 2026
The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office said his cause of death could not be determined without further testing.
—Los Angeles Times, 10 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for cause
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cause
Verb
-
One of the bills would create a pilot program for psychedelic or psilocybin mushrooms to be used in medicine for the treatment of mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression.—
Esme Murphy,
CBS News,
11 Apr. 2026
-
Public transport systems have struggled to keep up, creating demand for commercial motorcycles and auto-rickshaws.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
11 Apr. 2026
Noun
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The reason many of the remaining adults on Medicaid are not working is that they are retired, serving as a caregiver, or too sick, KFF has found.—
Samantha Liss,
CBS News,
15 Apr. 2026
-
Humans are in the loop for a reason.—
Gideon Lewis-Kraus,
New Yorker,
15 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
Trotsky’s arguments about revolution in one nation versus a revolution of the international proletariat, like the fine argumentative tracery of Paul’s Jewish Christians versus Greek ones, seemed vital to the movement at the time but weirdly trivial and abstract to those outside it.—
Adam Gopnik,
New Yorker,
13 Apr. 2026
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These sonobuoys typically work as part of a larger network, where multiple buoys are deployed over a wide area to create an underwater surveillance grid, allowing operators to triangulate and track submarine movements more accurately, as per reports.—
Prabhat Ranjan Mishra,
Interesting Engineering,
12 Apr. 2026
Verb
-
Community members are asked to bring their own bags.—
Ryan Hughes,
CBS News,
12 Apr. 2026
-
This thing that brings us into the world can so quickly be deemed indecent.—
Jennifer Wilson,
New Yorker,
12 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Moreover, since the risk of contracting HIV is closely linked to the social determinants of health, such as having safe and stable housing and employment, barriers to HIV testing could further widen health gaps.—
Nathaniel M. Tran,
The Conversation,
10 Apr. 2026
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High blood pressure is treatable, but despite having access to effective and affordable medications, more than half of Americans still have uncontrolled hypertension, with rates going up in sync with adverse social determinants of health.—
Elizabeth Cooney,
STAT,
8 Apr. 2026
Noun
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That said, where does the campaign go now, with voting in the state’s top-two primary beginning in a few weeks?—
Dan Walters,
Oc Register,
14 Apr. 2026
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And Cherfilus-McCormick has been charged by federal prosecutors with improperly using millions of dollars in federal pandemic relief funds in connection with her campaign.—
Caitlin Huey-Burns,
CBS News,
14 Apr. 2026
Verb
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Some early testers have used Skills to quickly enter prompts to calculate protein macros in a recipe, generate side-by-side comparisons across multiple tabs while shopping, and summarize lengthy documents, Google adds.—
Jibin Joseph,
PC Magazine,
15 Apr. 2026
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The book was completed months before Anthropic’s redlines generated new interest in autonomous-drone swarms and killer robots, but even then the writing was on the wall.—
Gideon Lewis-Kraus,
New Yorker,
15 Apr. 2026
Noun
-
The contest over causation goes to parents’ simultaneous senses of responsibility and helplessness about their children’s fates.—
Jeannie Suk Gersen,
New Yorker,
9 Apr. 2026
-
This means the study shows an association between premature menopause and heart disease, not causation.—
Helen Carefoot,
Flow Space,
20 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Cause.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cause. Accessed 18 Apr. 2026.
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