Noun: caste
| Singular | caste |
| Plural | castes |
Sample Sentences
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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. [2017 April 6, Samira Shackle, “On the frontline with Karachi’s ambulance drivers”, in the Guardian:]
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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? [1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Hill of Illusion”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 86:]
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'I believe, Messieurs, in loyalty - to one's friends and one's family and one's caste.' [1934, Agatha Christie, chapter 5, in Murder on the Orient Express, London: HarperCollins, published 2017, page 236:]
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The tinkers then formed a hereditary caste. [1911, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Bunyan, John”, in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:]
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It was an evidence of the peculiar nature of caste in country towns[.] [1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 89:]
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In beehives, most bees belong to the worker caste.
Nouns inflected like caste
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
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-. See: Spanish Nouns '
casta', Latin Nouns '
castus', English Nouns '
cast'.
Verbs referencing "caste"
Dutch Nouns
kaste, Polish Nouns
kasta.