house / building
The physical structure.
o casă mare
a big house
casa de la țară
the house in the country
#148 · Noun
casă
In Romanian, casă means “house / building”. It’s the #148 most frequently used Romanian word. Below you’ll find how to use it, its forms, real example sentences, and common word pairings.
Meaning & Use
Casă is "house", feminine, rank 148 — and it sits right next to acasă, "home", which is an adverb and behaves completely differently. Casa mea is my house, a thing you can point at; acasă is where you go, with no preposition. Getting the pair straight is most of the work with this word.
neutralhome / household
The place and the people in it. Also the family finances: bugetul casei.
casa părintească
the family home
till / cash desk
In a shop, casa is where you pay. Casa de marcat is the till itself.
Plătiți la casă.
Pay at the till.
on the house (din partea casei)
The restaurant phrase for something free.
din partea casei
on the house
Forms you’ll actually hear
Ranked by how often each form shows up in spoken Romanian. The top 2 forms cover about 88% of everyday use — learn these first.
casa53%
casă35%
Show 4 more forms
casei7%
case3%
casele2%
caselor<1%
Noun Forms
- Gender
- feminine
- Countability
- countable
| singular indefinite | casă | |
|---|---|---|
| singular definite | casa | |
| plural indefinite | case | |
| plural definite | casele | |
| genitive dative singular | casei | |
| genitive dative plural | caselor |
A regular feminine noun in -ă: casă, casa, case, casele, genitive-dative casei and caselor. The adverb acasă is built from the same root but takes no article and no preposition, so it never appears in this table.
Examples
Casa lor e foarte mare.
Their house is very big.
casa - The definite form with a possessive. lor is invariable, unlike meu and tău which agree.
Am cumpărat o casă.
I bought a house.
casă - The indefinite with o. Compare am mers acasă, where no article and no preposition can appear at all.
Intră în casă, e frig.
Come inside, it's cold.
casă - The noun takes a preposition — în casă means inside the building. acasă could not follow în.
Acoperișul casei e vechi.
The roof of the house is old.
casei - The genitive casei carries "of the house" with no separate word.
Sunt case noi pe strada asta.
There are new houses on this street.
case - The indefinite plural, with the adjective agreeing in the feminine plural: noi.
Casă is a noun, acasă is an adverb. Merg acasă is "I am going home"; merg la casă would mean going to a specific building, and *merg la acasă is not Romanian. If you can point at it, use casă; if you mean where you live, use acasă.