caste

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   social status or position conferred by a system based on class

   Lose caste by doing work beneath one's station.

2. 2
   noun

   Any of the hereditary social classes and subclasses of South Asian societies or similar found historically in other cultures.

   Pakistan is a conservative, religious state. The Edhi Foundation is unusual in its ignoring of caste, creed, religion and sect. This strict stance has led to some criticism from religious groups.

3. 3
   noun

   A separate and fixed order or class of persons in society who chiefly associate with each other.

   Ah! Can you give me all I've asked for — not now, nor a few months later, but when you begin to think of what you might have done if you had kept your own appointment and your caste here — when you begin to look upon me as a drag and a burden?

4. 4
   noun

   The division of society into castes; the caste system.

   It was an evidence of the peculiar nature of caste in country towns[.].

Borrowed from Portuguese or Spanish casta (“lineage, breed, race”), which the OED derives from Portuguese casto (“chaste”), from Latin castus (“chaste"; "chastity”), Coromines (1987) argues instead for a hypothetical Gothic form *𐌺𐌰𐍃𐍄𐍃 (*kasts, “group, collection of animals”), cognate with English cast, from Proto-Germanic *kastuz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ǵ-es-.

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