outcast

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English outcast, also outkast and outicast,^[2][3] formed from Middle English out- + cast, the past participle of casten (“to throw, cast”),^[3][4] after the phrase “cast out”.^[3] Etymonline and Merriam-Webster describe it as the past participle of outcasten (“to throw out, expel, reject”), from out and casten.^[5][6] Cast comes from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse kasta (“to throw”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a person or a community, socially despised, exiled or rejected: before 1325, in the Southern Passion (composed about 1280),^[3] where the verb, to cast out, is also first recorded.^[3][2] Etymonline dates the noun to the mid-14th century and the adjective to the late 14th.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The noun, a person cast out of a society or rejected by friends, is recorded from about 1390.^[3] A thing thrown away could also be an outcast: refuse, offal or a plant thrown out of a garden, from before 1398, in Trevisa, to 1842.^[3] From about 1560 the adjective was applied to rejected or discarded things.^[3] In architecture an outcast was a part built out from the main building (1574–1625),^[3] and a Scottish inventory of 1671 used the word for inferior sheep culled from the flock, a use the English Dialect Dictionary also records from Lincolnshire.^[3][7] Johnson (1755) noted that both the participle and the noun were stressed on either syllable, and thought it best to stress the participle on the last and the noun on the first.^[8] The verb is now rare or poetic.^[4] In an Indian context the spelling outcaste, one expelled from a caste, is recorded from 1876.^[5]

Timeline

• before 1325 – adjective, socially despised, cast out; verb, to cast out.^[3][2]
• c. 1390 – noun, a person cast out of society.^[3]
• before 1398 – something thrown away, refuse (obsolete by 1842).^[3]
• c. 1560 – adjective, of things, rejected or discarded.^[3]
• 1620 – Scottish, a quarrel or falling out.^[3]
• 1876 – outcaste, in India, one expelled from a caste.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who has been rejected or driven out by society or a group; a pariah: After the trial he lived as an outcast in his own town.^[9][6][3]
2. A vagabond or wanderer.^[9][3]
3. Something thrown out or rejected.^[9][6]
4. (Scotland) A quarrel or falling out.^[3][6][7]

Adjective

1. Rejected or despised by society; exiled or friendless.^[9][6][3]
2. Thrown aside; discarded.^[9][6][3]

Verb

1. (rare) To cast out or banish.^[4][6][3]

Related words

• cast
• outcaste
• castaway

Usage notes

In Scots, outcast (also ootcast) means a quarrel, recorded from 1620; the OED forms it from out- and cast, after "cast out" in the sense of falling out.^[3][7] Burns wrote of "a bitter black out-cast" in The Twa Herds (1785).^[7][6]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins