CASTE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • 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

... parts of the body, they become nearly as large as an egg, and blood flows from them to such an excess, that the strength of the patient is exhausted, and consumption frequently follows. From the small verugas the flow of blood is greatest. I knew an instance of a half-caste Indian who from a small veruga below the ankle lost two ...

— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... of January last, a workman employed in the magazine at Barrackpore, an important station about seventeen miles from Calcutta, stopped to ask a Sepoy for some water from his drinking-vessel. Being refused, because he was of low caste, and his touch would defile the vessel, he said, with a sneer, "What caste are you of, who bite pig's grease and cow's fat on your cartridges?" Practice with the new Enfield rifle had just been introduced, and the cartridges were greased for ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... to the Sepoys. The story of the greased cartridges ran up the Ganges to Benares, Delhi and Meerut. It was soon noised abroad that the bones of cows and pigs had been ground to powder and thrown into wells with flour and butter in order to destroy the caste of the Hindus so as to convert ...

— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... Thurston, "strictly means women's apartment, but as it is generally used by us it means the houses of the high caste gentlemen, where their wives live in great seclusion. These high caste women very seldom go out, except occasionally to worship at some temple. They live, as we would say, at the back of the house, their windows ...

— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett

... Rogue Rivers had been bragging for some time that they could whip the soldiers, these other Indians had come out to see it done. The result, however, disappointed the spectators, and the Rogue Rivers naturally lost caste. The fifteen men now came in and laid down their arms (including my six-shooter) in front of us as agreed, but I compelled them to take the surrendered guns up again and carry them to the post, where they were deposited in the block-house for future security. The prisoners ...

— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

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