caste
/kɑːst
/- In case your Hinduism is a little rusty, the Brahmans are the priest caste in traditional Hindu society.
- Indian Christians are said to still discreetly follow pre-conversion castes of their Hindu forefathers.
- Hindus of many castes and sects and from many parts of India have migrated, taking with them traditions that were familiar to them back home.
Synonyms
- The weak character of the empire came from the rigid caste system that divided people and created unstable feelings among them.
- To do otherwise is to lock our society into a type of caste system.
- For another, the hierarchical, non-democratic, caste systems of childhood have nothing in common with contemporary political credos.
- Almost half a century later their privileged lifestyle and their aura of being an exclusive caste still attracted comment.
- He cannot do anything about his time at Eton but he must make more connections outside a privileged caste of friends.
- A republican government does not comfortably coexist with a submerged caste within the population.
- In many termite species, for example, soldier castes are highly developed, and colony members never leave their nests of dead wood because, like gall aphids and gall thrips, they are able to feed off the walls.
- And after identifying worker ants in several of the fossils, he believes that ants had already begun to specialize into castes.
- The new study also reveals how elements in the genome may influence the development of vastly different honeybee castes, such as queens and workers, from the same genetic material.
There are four basic classes or varnas in Hindu society: Brahman (priest), Kshatriya (warrior), Vaisya (merchant or farmer), and Sudra (labourer). The lowest class, the scheduled caste (formerly known as untouchables), fall outside the varna system and have historically suffered extreme discrimination.
Phrases
lose caste
Origin
Mid 16th century (in the general sense 'race, breed'): from Spanish and Portuguese casta 'lineage, race, breed', feminine of casto 'pure, unmixed', from Latin castus 'chaste'.
The general sense in early use was ‘race, breed’. It is from Spanish and Portuguese casta ‘lineage, race, breed’, feminine of casto ‘pure, unmixed’, from Latin castus ‘chaste’, also the source of castigate (early 17th century), and chasten (mid 16th century) ‘make chaste’, and chaste (Middle English) itself. The common current use is to refer to the hereditary classes of Hindu society: Brahman (priest), Kshatriya (warrior), Vaisya (merchant or farmer), and Sudra (labourer).