Vaishya
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The third caste of traditional Indian society, comprising merchants and landowners.
- 2 Alternative spelling of Vaishya. alt-of, alternative
- 3 A member of this caste.
"To perform successfully in the marketplace, vaishyas had to be ambitious, to want worldly goods, and to compete aggressively with their rivals, and this "desire" bound them inexorably to the cycle of death and rebirth."
Example
More examples"To perform successfully in the marketplace, vaishyas had to be ambitious, to want worldly goods, and to compete aggressively with their rivals, and this "desire" bound them inexorably to the cycle of death and rebirth."
Etymology
From Sanskrit वैश्य (vaiśya).
More for "vaishya"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.