cast of characters
- noun
- /kæst əv ˈkɛrɪktərz/
- The play featured a diverse cast of characters that brought the story to life.
- a diverse cast of characters
- a large cast of characters
- the same cast of characters
Examples
-
A precursor of television sitcoms, the show had a regular cast of characters and regularly repeated comic motifs and conflicts.
Academic text (1993) -
If that makes it sound like I suddenly had a whole new cast of characters, well, that was exactly the case.
Academic text (2009) -
Movies and TV have the same limited cast of characters as comic books and toys.
Blog text (12) -
It's the same scene as before: same bartender, a slightly different cast of characters.
Fiction book (1997) -
The Face in the Abyss is a grand book with a grand cast of characters.
Blog text (11) -
Speculative fiction by diverse authors and featuring a diverse cast of characters is on the rise.
Blog text (6) -
In the movie, the cast of characters included several well-known actors.
-
Each month, the theater group introduces a new cast of characters for their productions.
Synonyms
A group of actors who perform in a play or film
A group of actors, dancers, or other performers who work together
A group of people who put on plays for an audience
A list of the characters in a play, often on the first page
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
Both constituent words contribute directly to the meaning: 'cast' = a group of actors and 'character' = a fictional person or role, linked by the standard 'of' construction. The phrase simply denotes the group of roles/actors and follows regular compositional patterns that a B1 learner who knows the parts can readily infer.
Etymology
Cast of characters comes from the theatre: a director would cast actors into different characters, making the group who appear in the show. That's why the phrase means 'the group of actors who perform'.