cause sb. (the foll. are obs. or archaic uses; 1 is a general application of the legal sense ‘subject of litigation’; 4 taken over from late Latin ‘causa’)
1.
matter in dispute, affair to
be decided
Shr. IV. iv. 26
“a weighty cause Of
love,”
2H6 III. i. 289
“What counsel give you
in this weighty cause?”
2.
contextually =
charge, accusation
Lr. IV. vi. 112
“What was thy cause?
Adultery?”
3.
matter of concern,
affair, business LLL. V. ii.
749,
H5 I. i. 45
“any cause of
policy,”
1H6 V. iii. 106, R3 III. v. 65 (Ff “case”),
Lucr. 1295
“The craves
haste.”
4.
disease
All'sW. II. i. 114
“touch'd With that
malignant cause,”
Cor. III. i. 234
“to cure this
cause.”
5.
term in the practice
of duelling (not yet fully explained)
LLL. I. ii. 187
“The first and second
cause,”
AYL. V. iv. 52
“the quarrel was upon
the seventh cause,”
Rom. II. iv. 27.