chaste

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English chast, also chaste,^[2] borrowed from Old French chaste (“morally pure”),^[3][4][5][6] from Latin castus (“clean, pure, morally pure, holy”).^[3][4][5][7] The Anglo-Norman chaste, also caste, is recorded from 1113–19.^[8] The OED calls the French word semi-popular.^[5] Klein and Etymonline take castus as the past participle of careō (“to be without, be cut off from”), first "cut off, separated", and so related to castrō (“to cut, geld”);^[9][3][4] Etymonline traces it to Proto-Indo-European *kes- (“to cut”).^[3][6] It is a doublet of caste.^[4][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pure from unlawful sexual intercourse, continent, virtuous, of persons and their lives: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[5][4] Etymonline gives about 1200,^[3] and Dictionary.com 1175–1225.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Sexual purity, as the Church defined it, is the word's oldest sense in English.^[3][5] Anglo-Norman already had "virginal" and "pure in spirit or faith".^[8] Middle English extended it to "celibate, single" (about 1315) and to "morally pure, innocent" (before 1340).^[5] Etymonline notes that a noun chaste, a virgin person, is recorded from the early 14th century.^[3] Shakespeare's Othello has the figurative "undefiled".^[5] Since 1621, in Burton, the word could mean decent, free from indecency, in language or conduct.^[5][3] Johnson (1755) lists language "not mixed with barbarous phrases" and speech "without obscenity" beside the sexual senses.^[12] Style came last: Hogarth in 1753 uses it for art without showy ornament,^[5][3] and the sense spread to tastes and qualities in Burke, before 1797.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – pure from unlawful sexual intercourse, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[5]
• c. 1315 – celibate, single (obsolete by 1600).^[5]
• before 1340 – morally pure, innocent (obsolete by 1535).^[5]
• before 1400 – restrained, subdued.^[5]
• 1562 – chaste tree, a mistranslation of Latin agnus castus.^[5]
• 1565 – relating to sexual purity.^[5]
• before 1616 – figurative, undefiled, in Othello.^[5]
• 1621 – decent, free from offensiveness, in Burton.^[5]
• 1753 – pure in artistic style, without showy ornament, in Hogarth.^[5][3]
• before 1797 – of tastes, modest and restrained, in Burke.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Abstaining from sexual relations not allowed by religion or morality.^{[6][13][14][5]}
2. Not having had sexual intercourse; virginal.^[6][13]
3. Abstaining from all sexual relations; celibate.^[6][14]
4. Not suggestive of sexual desire or indecency; modest or decent: a chaste peck on the cheek.^{[6][13][14][5]}
5. Pure or simple in design or style; free from ornament, austere: a chaste white façade.^{[6][13][14][5]}
6. Clean, pure, stainless.^[14][5]
7. (archaic) Restrained, subdued.^[14][5]

Word family

• chastely
• chasteness
• chastity
• unchaste
• chaste tree

Related words

• caste
• castrate
• castigate
• chasten
• chastise

Usage notes

Dictionary.com lists chaste beside chased among confusable words.^[11] An obsolete verb chaste, to correct, discipline or punish (about 1200–1549), comes from Old French chastier, from Latin castīgō; the OED and Ayto connect it with chasten and chastise.^[5][10][15] The plant name chaste tree arose from a mistranslation of Latin agnus castus, the tree's name being mistaken for agnus (“lamb”).^[5]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Skeat, W. W., ed. (1894), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI: Glossarial Index, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press