cascade

Etymology

From French cascade, from Italian cascata, from cascare (“to fall”), from Vulgar Latin *cāsicāre, derived from Latin cadere, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱh₂d-.

noun

1. A waterfall or series of small waterfalls.
   Now murm'ring soft, now roaring in cascade. 1785, William Cowper, The Garden
   The silver brook […] pours the white cascade. 1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Spirit of Poetry
2. (figurative) 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
   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. 2019 October, “Funding for 20tph East London Line service”, in Modern Railways, page 18
3. A series of electrical (or other types of) components, the output of any one being connected to the input of the next; See also daisy chain
4. (juggling) A pattern typically performed with an odd number of props, where each prop is caught by the opposite hand.
5. (Internet) 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).
   Don't you hate cascades? I hate cascades! 1993, e.j.barker, “Disassociation”, in alt.slack (Usenet)
   Spark a usenet cascade of no less than 300 replies. 1999, anonymous author, “CYBERLIAR SCAVENGER HUNT 1999”, in alt.test (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. 2004, swt, “ARRR!”, in alt.religion.kibology (Usenet)
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.
   A cascade can be added to one or both sides of the band to work well with longer hair. 1998, Teresa Nelson, Creative Wedding Decorations You Can Make, page 10
7. (chemistry) A series of reactions in which the product of one becomes a reactant in the next

verb

1. (intransitive) To fall as a waterfall or series of small waterfalls.
   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. August 26 2020, “Network News: Major flood damage severs key Edinburgh-Glasgow rail artery”, in Rail, page 21
2. (transitive) To arrange in a stepped series like a waterfall.
   No matter how you tile or cascade the windows, each window's Minimize, Maximize, and Restore buttons work as usual. 2001, Greg M Perry, Sams teach yourself Microsoft Windows XP in 24 hours
3. (intransitive) To occur as a causal sequence.
   Child folders inherit the configuration of their parent folder, meaning that configuration settings cascade down through an application's virtual folder hierarchy. 2003, Adam Freeman, Allen Jones, Programming .NET Security
   Relief arrived at Cardiff Canton depot on 1 September in the shape of the first of 12 Class 170 units cascaded from Greater Anglia. 2019 October, Rhodri Clark, “TfW seeks PRM derogation for Class 37 sets”, in Modern Railways, page 87
4. (archaic, slang) To vomit.