cascade

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
cascade/kaˈskeɪd/

▶noun

• 1 a small waterfall, especially one in a series.

• 2 a mass of something that falls, hangs, or occurs in copious quantities: a cascade of pink bougainvillea.

• 3 a process by which information or knowledge is passed on successively.

• 4 a succession of devices or stages in a process, each of which triggers or initiates the next.

▶verb

• 1 pour downwards rapidly and in large quantities.

• 2 pass (information or knowledge) on to a succession of others.

• 3 arrange in a series or sequence.

– origin C17: from Fr., from Ital. cascata, from cascare ‘to fall’, based on L. casus (see case1).