in grammar, the second case of the declension of nouns. The relation of one thing considered as belonging in some manner to another, has occasioned a peculiar termination of nouns called the genitive case; but in the vulgar tongues they make use of a sign to express the relation of this case. In English they prefix the particle of, in French de or du, &c. Though in strictness there are no cases in either of these languages; inasmuch as they do not express the different relations of things by different terminations, but by additional prepositions, which is otherwise in the Latin.