cause and effect

noun

plural causes and effects

: the direct relationship between an action or event and its consequence or result

There was an accident, so traffic was at a standstill. The gravitational pull of the moon causes the tides of the ocean. I stuck to a training plan, so I finished my race strong. Cause and effect is a concept we all learn in grade school, and we see it play out in hundreds of circumstances every day.

—Ben Gibson

"Human nature is to look for cause and effect," says Robert Baloh, professor of neurology and head and neck surgery at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine. … "I see this daily when I see patients. They're all sure something they ate or something they did caused their problem and their symptoms."

—Frank Bures

… focused on observable and verifiable causes and effects in the natural world …

—Rafi Eis

Examples of cause and effect in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

That’s a lot of Oscar history happening in the span of two years, a Jenga tower of cause and effect that would topple if even one block got removed. —Joe Reid, Vulture, 26 Nov. 2024

The framework also has implications for understanding the tricky question of cause and effect in complex and emergent systems. —Philip Ball, WIRED, 21 July 2024

My medical invoices had descriptive line items and when placed next to photos of the mouldy air-conditioning units, told a plain story of cause and effect. —Melissa Kenny, refinery29.com, 30 Oct. 2024

But deep learning is fundamentally blind to cause and effect. —Will Knight, WIRED, 8 Oct. 2019

Word History

First Known Use

1599, in the meaning defined above