English Explanatory Dictionary

caste

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Any of the hereditary social classes and subclasses of South Asian societies or similar found historically in other cultures.
  2. A separate and fixed order or class of persons in society who chiefly associate with each other.
  3. The division of society into castes; the caste system.
  4. A class of polymorphous eusocial insects of a particular size and function within a colony.

Pronunciation

käst /kɑːst/ /kast/ /kæst/ En-us-caste.ogg

Word forms

caste castes

Etymology

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-.

Derived words

anticaste casted casteism casteist castelect casteless castelike caste mark castemate caste-ridden castewise half-caste intercaste intracaste lose caste noncaste outcaste quarter-caste subcaste supercaste
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