caste

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kɑːst/; /kæst/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Portuguese casta (“race, breed”),^[2][3][4][5] from the feminine of casto “pure”,^[2][4][5] from Latin castus (“pure, chaste”).^[2][3][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first meant a race or breed of people, a sense now obsolete.^[6][3]

Semantic evolution

From 1613 it was applied specifically to the hereditary social classes of India,^[6][4] and then by transfer to any hereditary or exclusive social class,^[6][4] to the system itself,^[6] and to classes of social insects such as worker ants.^[6][2][4]

Timeline

• 1550s – a race or breed (obsolete);^[3] the OED’s first quotation is 1555.^[6]
• 1613 – a hereditary class in India;^[6][4] Etymonline gives the 1610s.^[3]
• 1807 – any hereditary or exclusive class.^[6]
• 1840 – caste system.^[3][6]
• 1859 – classes of social insects.^[6]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Any of the hereditary social classes of Hindu society.
2. A social class marked off by hereditary rank, occupation or wealth.
3. A system of rigid hereditary social distinctions, or the status it gives.
4. A specialized form within a colony of social insects.

Word family

• casteism
• casteless
• anticaste
• intercaste
• outcaste
• subcaste
• caste mark
• half-caste

Related words

• chaste
• cast

References

1. [1] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. [1] [2] [3] [4] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. [1] [2] [3] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press