Idiom
root cause
Meaning
An initiating cause of a chain of events which leads to an outcome or effect of interest.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“We need to find the root cause of this problem.”
“The mechanic inspected the engine to identify the root cause of the strange noise.”
“After a thorough investigation, the committee finally determined that poor communication was the root cause of the project's failure.”
Examples
simple
“We need to find the root cause of this problem.”
contextual
“The mechanic inspected the engine to identify the root cause of the strange noise.”
complex
“After a thorough investigation, the committee finally determined that poor communication was the root cause of the project's failure.”
Key words
Related idioms
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