To undergo caseation; to convert into a cheese-like substance, especially referring to the process of cheese formation or the pathological change of tissue during certain diseases.
From Latin 'caseus' (cheese) with the verb-forming suffix '-ate,' meaning to become or cause to become. In medical contexts, particularly tuberculosis, it describes tissue death that appears cheese-like under a microscope.
Doctors noticed that when tuberculosis destroys tissue, it leaves behind a peculiar substance that looks like cheese under a microscope, so they literally called it 'caseating'—showing how medical observation of disease led to using a food metaphor as scientific terminology.
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