▪ I. caste
(kɑːst, -æ-)
Forms: 6–9 cast, 6, 8– caste.
[ad. Sp. and Pg. casta ‘race, lineage, breed’ (Minsheu); orig. according to Diez ‘pure or unmixed (stock or breed)’, f. casta fem. of casto:—L. castus -a pure, unpolluted (see chaste). App. at first from Sp.; but in its Indian application from the Portuguese, who had so applied it about the middle of the 16th c. (Garcia 1563). The current spelling (after F. caste, which appears in the Academie's Dict. of 1740), is hardly found before 1800; it was previously written cast, and app. often assumed to be merely a particular application of cast n.]
† 1. a. A race, stock, or breed (of men). Obs. in general sense.
| 1555 Fardle Facions ii. i. 118 The Nabatheens..Their caste is wittye in winning of substaunce. 1596 Raleigh Disc. Guiana (1887) 134 One sort of people called Tinitiuas, but of two casts as they term them. 1615 Bedwell Arab. Trudg., Beni, A family, nation, kinred, or cast as they call it. 1704 Collect. Voy. (Churchill) III. 5/1 Who are a cast of Men that are their Doctors. 1732 Berkeley Alciphr. vi. §2 All the various casts or sects of the sons of men have each their faith and their religious system. 1774 J. Bryant Mythol. II. 328 There is a cast of Indians, who are disciples of Bontas. |
b. For Spanish casta, applied in South America, to the several mixed breeds between Europeans, Indians, and Negroes.
| 1760 tr. Juan & Ulloa's Voy. S. Amer. (1772) I. i. iv. 29 The inhabitants may be divided into different casts or tribes, who derive their origin from a coalition of Whites, Negroes, and Indians. Ibid. II. vii. v. 53 The inhabitants of Lima are composed of whites or Spaniards, Negroes, Indians, Mestizos, and other casts, proceeding from the mixture of all three. Ibid. II. viii. viii. 266 Between fifty and sixty families, most of them Mestizos, though their cast is not at all perceivable by their complexion. |
c. Breed of animals.
| 1799 Corse in Phil. Trans. 205 (Elephants) Both males and females are divided into two casts, by the natives of Bengal, viz. the koomareah and the merghee. |
2. a. spec. One of the several hereditary classes into which society in India has from time immemorial been divided; the members of each caste being socially equal, having the same religious rites, and generally following the same occupation or profession; those of one caste have no social intercourse with those of another.
The original casts were four: 1st, Brahmans or priestly caste; 2nd, the Kshatriyas or military caste; 3rd, the Vaisyas or merchants; 4th, the Sudras, or artisans and labourers. These have in the course of ages been sub-divided into an immense multitude, almost every occupation or variety of occupation having now its special caste.
This is now the leading sense, which influences all others.
| 1613 Purchas Pilgr. I. 485 (Y.) The Banians kill nothing: There are thirtie and odd severall casts of these. 1630 Lord Banians 72 (Y.) The common Bramane hath eighty-two Casts or Tribes. 1766 J. H. Grose Voy. E. Ind. I. 201 (Y.) The distinction of the Gentoos into their tribes or casts. 1782 Burke Corr. (1844) III. 7 The illustrious and sacred caste to which you belong. 1796 Hunter tr. St. Pierre's Stud. Nat. (1799) III. 792 Her mother..had lately been burnt alive with the body of her father, conformably to the practice of her caste. 1800 Wellington Let. in J. Gurwood Desp. I. 125 They are of the cast of the old Rajahs. c 1813 Mrs. Sherwood Ayah & Lady Gloss. s.v., The natives of India are divided into various ranks, called casts. 1818 Jas. Mill British India I. ii. ii. 182 The Hindus were thus divided into four orders or castes. 1875 Maine Hist. Inst. viii. 244 The problem of the origin of castes. |
b. transf. A hereditary class resembling those of India. fig. A class who keep themselves socially distinct, or inherit exclusive privileges.
| 1807 Vancouver Agric. Devon (1813) 468 The peasant's mind should never be inspired with a desire to amend his circumstances by the quitting of his cast. 1816 J. Gilchrist Philos. Etym. Introd. 18 Likely to unite the learned casts against him and provoke classic hostility. 1833 Tennyson Lady Clara Vere de Vere v, Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. 1839 Thirlwall Greece I. 119 An ancient priestly caste. 1852 Disraeli Ld. G. Bentinck xxiv. 497 The peculiar and chosen race touch the hands of all the scum and low castes of Europe. 1856 Emerson Eng. Traits Wks. (Bohn) II. 136 The feudal system survives in..the social barriers which confine patronage and promotion to a caste. |
c. transf. Applied to the different classes in a community of social insects, as ants.
| 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. ii. (1873) 36 The castes are connected together by finely graduated varieties. Ibid. viii. (1873) 230 The castes, moreover, do not commonly graduate into each other. |
3. a. The system or basis of this division among the Hindus; also the position it confers, as in to lose caste, or renounce caste.
| [1796 in Ann. Rev. (1803) I. 212/1 (Low as it was) he should lose his cast.] 1811 Mrs. Sherwood Henry & Bearer 63 He has lost caste for becoming a Christian. 1858 Max Müller Chips (1880) II. xxvii. 302 In India caste, in one form or other, has existed from the earliest times. 1858 J. B. Norton Topics 181 The stationary institutions of India, especially that of caste. |
b. gen. and fig. A system of rigid social distinctions in a community; to lose caste: to lose social rank, to descend in the social scale.
| 1816 Times in Hone Every-day Bk. I. 918 Loss of cast in society. 1828 Miss Mitford Village Ser. iii. (1863) 65 A natural fear of losing caste among her neighbours. 1841 Myers Cath. Th. iv. 423 [Christianity] exorcises the spirit of caste. 1870 Emerson Soc. & Solit. Civiliz. Wks. (Bohn) III. 9 The diffusion of knowledge, overrunning all the old barriers of caste. 1882 Hinsdale Garfield & Educ. ii. 240 In this country there are no classes in the British sense of that word,—no impassable barriers of caste. |
4. attrib. and in comb., as caste feeling, caste-mark, caste system; caste-bound, caste-ridden adj. See also half-caste.
| 1840 Arnold Let. in Life & Corr. (1844) II. ix. 200 The caste system is an insuperable difficulty. 1868 M. Pattison Academ. Org. §4. 73 By the abolition of the rank of ‘nobleman’..the last remnant of the caste system will be swept away. 1875 Hamerton Intell. Life viii. i. 279 The caste-feeling in one class or another. 1901 Kipling Kim xi. 290 Kim splashed in a noble caste-mark on the ash-smeared brow. 1941 C. Kirkus Let's go Climbing xiv. 177 At the temple at Gangotri red caste-marks were put on our foreheads. 1955 T. H. Pear Eng. Social Diff. 133 The mass of Americans..took it for granted that the typical Briton is essentially a caste-bound snob. |
Hence castehood, the condition of belonging to a caste; castism, a system resembling caste.
| 1862 R. Patterson Ess. Hist. & Art 464 Even the out⁓casts—those who had fallen or been expelled from castehood—band themselves together in castes of their own. 1881 J. Kerr (title), Essays on Castism and Sectism. |
▪ II. † caste, v. Obs. rare.
[A doublet of chaste v.; a. ONF. castier (mod.F. châtier:—L. castigāre.]
To chasten, chastise.
| c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 137 Mid softnesse he castede þe sinfulle. |