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[.].

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Caste came from Spanish and Portuguese casta “lineage, race, breed,” the feminine form of casto “pure, unmixed.” Casto derives from Latin castus “chaste.” The English word initially meant a race or breed and later became especially associated with the hereditary social classes of Hindu society.

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-.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary