Cast away or castaway?
cast away is a verb meaning “To discard”; castaway is an adjective meaning “Cast adrift or ashore; marooned”. Use cast away as a verb and castaway as an adjective. cast away is written as two words and castaway as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between cast away and castaway?
| cast away | castaway | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | adjective, noun |
| Meaning | To discard To abandon or maroon | Cast adrift or ashore; marooned Shipwrecked A shipwrecked sailor |
| Example | She cast away her bridal dress along with other reminders of the marriage | After the mutiny, the castaway ship's officers suffered a month at sea in the lifeboat |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ˈkæs.tə.weɪ/ /ˈkɑːstəweɪ/ /ˈkæstəweɪ/ |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | about once in every 2 million words |
Sources: cast away and castaway in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of cast away and castaway
cast away
- 1
To discard
She cast away her bridal dress along with other reminders of the marriage
- 2
To abandon or maroon
The mutineers cast away the ship's officers in the longboat
- 3
To eliminate by means of a cast operation
castaway
- 1
Cast adrift or ashore; marooned
After the mutiny, the castaway ship's officers suffered a month at sea in the lifeboat
- 2
A shipwrecked sailor
Robinson Crusoe was a famous fictional castaway
- 3
Shipwrecked
The storm left them castaway on an uninhabited island
- 4
A discarded person or thing
This old coat was a castaway in someone's trash
- 5
Cast out; rejected or excluded from a group
- 6
An outcast; someone cast out of a group or society
These homeless people are society's castaways
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, cast away or castaway?
cast away is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; castaway about once in every 2 million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).