Caste
noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Any of the hereditary social classes and subclasses of South Asian societies or similar found historically in other cultures.
"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."
- 2 in some social insects (such as ants) a physically distinct individual or group of individuals specialized to perform certain functions in the colony wordnet
- 3 A separate and fixed order or class of persons in society who chiefly associate with each other.
"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?"
- 4 a social class separated from others by distinctions of hereditary rank or profession or wealth wordnet
- 5 The division of society into castes; the caste system. uncountable
"It was an evidence of the peculiar nature of caste in country towns[.]"
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- 6 (Hinduism) a hereditary social class among Hindus; stratified according to ritual purity wordnet
- 7 A class of polymorphous eusocial insects of a particular size and function within a colony.
"In beehives, most bees belong to the worker caste."
- 8 social status or position conferred by a system based on class wordnet
Example
More examples"“The music of the Yazidi people is absolutely essential to their culture,” Bochmann told VOA. “Only one section of the people, the Qawals caste, are allowed to sing the music. There are only 16 of them left, and so we thought it would be essential in case another genocide took place, or anything else horrific, that we lodge this and record it.”"
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-.
Related phrases
More for "caste"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.