caste
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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
caste
- /kɑːst/ UK
- /kast/ Northern England, Scotland
- /kæst/ US
Sounds like cast, karst (non-rhotic, trap–bath split) · Rhymes with -ɑːst
Where it comes from
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-.
noun castes
- 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.
- 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?
- The division of society into castes; the caste system. It was an evidence of the peculiar nature of caste in country towns[.]
- A class of polymorphous eusocial insects of a particular size and function within a colony. In beehives, most bees belong to the worker caste.
