CASTE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Caste

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noun

Caste n.

One of the hereditary classes into which the Hindu are divided according to the laws of Brahmanism. Note: The members of the same caste are theoretically of equal rank, and same profession or occupation, and may not eat or intermarry with those not of their own caste. The original are four, viz., the Brahmans, or sacerdotal order; the Kshatriyas, or soldiers and rulers; the Vaisyas, or husbandmen and merchants; and the Sudras, or laborers and mechanics. Men of no caste are Pariahs, outcasts. Numerous mixed classes, or castes, have sprung up in the progress of time.

A separate and fixed order or class of persons in society who chiefly hold intercourse among themselves. "The tinkers then formed an hereditary caste."

To lose caste, to be degraded from the caste to which one has belonged; to lose social position or consideration.

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Etymology of 'Caste'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Caste" Quotes from Famous Books

... kind of map," shouted Edgar triumphantly. "If it had been, I wouldn't have gone on with it. It's a map anybody can read except a half-caste Portuguese sailor. It's as plain as a laundry bill. It says," he paused apprehensively, and then continued with caution, "it says at such and such a place there is a something. So many somethings from that something are three what-you-may-call-'ems, ...

— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis

... two are mutually sustaining? There was no real republicanism before the Gospels, and there has been no real addition to the doctrine since. The instant that religion or any great law of truth falls into the hands of a high caste, and puts on its livery, it becomes—ridiculous. What think you of a shepherd's crook of ...

— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... de Cambray," retorted de Marmont with a sneer, "is full up to his eyes with the prejudices and arrogance of his caste. It is men of his type—and not Marat or Robespierre—who made the revolution, who goaded the people of France into becoming something worse than man-devouring beasts. And, mind you, twenty years of exile did not sober them, nor did contact with democratic thought in England ...

— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... within the province of this book to dwell at length upon national costume, but rather to follow costume as it developed with and reflected caste, after human society ceased to be all alike as to occupation, ...

— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank

... millennia. The last native dynasty fell to the Persians in 341 B.C., who in turn were replaced by the Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. It was the Arabs who introduced Islam and the Arabic language in the 7th century and who ruled for the next six centuries. A local military caste, the Mamluks took control about 1250 and continued to govern after the conquest of Egypt by the Ottoman Turks in 1517. Following the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt became an important world transportation hub, but also fell heavily into debt. ...

— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

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