castaway, a. and n.
(ˈkɑːstəweɪ, ˈkæst-)
[f. cast v. + away.]
A. adj. Thrown away, cast off, rejected; reprobate; ‘useless, of no value’ (J.).
| 1542 Brinklow Compl. xvi. 41 Masterles and castaway courtyers. 1580 Sidney Arcadia (1622) 57 Certaine castaway vowes, how much he would doe for her sake. 1614 Raleigh Hist. World (J.) We..only remember, at our castaway leisure, the imprisoned immortal soul. 1818 Scott Hrt. Midl. xxxi, If I had minded..I had never been the cast-away creature that I am. 1876 Page Adv. Text-bk. Geol. xx. 413 Castaway bones of the deer, bear, and wild-ox. |
b. Cast adrift, stranded.
| 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1789), Cast away, the state of a ship which is lost..on a lee-shore, bank, or shallow. 1885 Stevenson Dynamiter 75 A young lady and a mass of baggage standing castaway at midnight on the streets of London. |
B. n. One who or that which is cast away or rejected; a reprobate.
| 1526 Tindale 2 Cor xiii. 5 Knowe ye not..how that Jesus Christ is in you excepte ye be castawayes [Cranmer cast a wayes, Coverd. cast awayes, Rhem. & 1611 reprobates]. 1563 Homilies ii. Passion ii. (1859) 419 Plaine reprobates and castawaies, being perpetually damned to the everlasting paines of hell-fire. 1594 Shakes. Rich. III, ii. ii. 6 Why do you..call vs Orphans, Wretches, Castawayes. 1611 Bible 1 Cor. ix. 27. 1829 Southey All for Love ii, ‘Dost thou..For ever pledge thyself to me?’..‘I do; so help me, Satan!’ said The wilful castaway. 1871 E. F. Burr Ad Fidem xi. 220 Castaways from God. |
b. esp. One cast adrift at sea; a shipwrecked man. Also fig. (from both senses) One cast adrift upon the world, or by society, an outcast.
| 1799 Cowper (title), The Castaway. 1816 J. Wilson City of Plague i. iii. 92 A lone castaway upon the sea. 1835 Marryat Jac. Faithf. xviii, Those who..leave it [youth] to drift about the world, have to answer for the cast-away. 1865 Swinburne Felise 80 [Such things] As the sea feeds on, wreck and stray and castaway. 1869 Lecky Europ. Mor. II. i. 36 The moral wellbeing of the castaways of Society. 1870 Times 27 Aug. 4/4 The visit of Her Majesty's ship Blanche to the Auckland Islands in search of the castaways of the Motoaka. |