[kuh-see-noh; It. kahs-see-naw] 
| a town in SE Latium, in central Italy, NNW of Naples: site of Monte Cassino. 24,695. |
[kuh-see-noh] | 1. | a building or large room used for meetings, entertainment, dancing, etc., esp. such a place equipped with gambling devices, gambling tables, etc. |
| 2. | (in Italy) a small country house or lodge. |
| 3. | Also, cassino. Cards. a game in which cards that are face up on the table are taken with eligible cards in the hand. |
| ca·si·no (kə-sē'nō) n. pl. ca·si·nos
[Italian, diminutive of casa, house, from Latin.] Word History: The history of the word casino reveals a transformation from a cottage to a gambling palace. The source of our word, Italian casino, is a diminutive of casa, "house." Central to the transformation is the development of the senses of casino in Italian. The word was first applied to a country house and then came to be used for a social gathering place, a room or building where one could dance, listen to music, and gamble. This last pastime seems to have gained precedence over the others, at least as far as the development of the word is concerned, and casino took on the meaning "gambling establishment." These senses of the Italian word have all been borrowed into English, the sense "social gathering place" being recorded first in the 18th century, the sense "gambling establishment" first in 1851. |
| cas·si·no (kə-sē'nō) n. Variant of casino. |
| Cas·si·no (kə-sē'nō, käs-) A town of central Italy in the Apennines northwest of Naples. In World War II the town and nearby Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino were reduced to rubble during fierce German-Allied fighting (February-May 1944). Population: 32,600. |
Cassino
town, Lazio (Latium) regione, central Italy. Cassino lies along the Rapido River at the foot of Monte (mount) Cassino, 87 miles (140 km) southeast of Rome. It originated as Casinum, a town of the ancient Volsci people on a site adjacent to the modern town, on the lower slopes of the mountain. Casinum passed under Roman control in 312 BC and thereafter prospered. It became a bishopric in the 5th century AD but suffered badly from successive barbarian incursions. In 529 St. Benedict of Nursia established the nucleus of his famous monastery on the summit of Monte Cassino. A remnant of the city below lingered on until it was abandoned by the remaining inhabitants about 866 for the present site, originally called Eulogomenopolis, later San Germano, and since 1871 Cassino. The settlement was strengthened in the 9th century by the building of the Rocca Ianula (fortress), where in 1139 Pope Innocent II was besieged and captured by Roger II of Sicily, and where in 1230 Pope Gregory IX made peace with the Holy Roman emperor Frederick II. It was sacked by French troops in 1799.
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