caste

American  

[kast, kahst] / kæst, kɑst /

noun

• castes
  plural

1. Sociology.

   1. an endogamous and hereditary social group limited to persons of the same rank, occupation, economic position, etc., and having mores distinguishing it from other such groups.

   2. any rigid system of social distinctions.

2. Hinduism. any of the social divisions into which Hindu society is traditionally divided, each caste having its own privileges and limitations, transferred by inheritance from one generation to the next; jati.

3. any class or group of society sharing common cultural features.

   low caste; high caste.

4. social position conferred upon one by a caste system.

   to lose caste.

5. Entomology. one of the distinct forms among polymorphous social insects, performing a specialized function in the colony, as a queen, worker or soldier.

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adjective

1. of, relating to, or characterized by caste.

   a caste society; a caste system; a caste structure.

caste British  

/ kɑːst /

noun

1. 1. any of the four major hereditary classes, namely the Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra into which Hindu society is divided See also Brahman Kshatriya Vaisya Sudra

   2. Also called: caste system.  the system or basis of such classes

   3. the social position or rank conferred by this system

2. any social class or system based on such distinctions as heredity, rank, wealth, profession, etc

3. the position conferred by such a system

4. entomol any of various types of specialized individual, such as the worker, in social insects (hive bees, ants, etc)

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caste Scientific  

/ kăst /

1. A specialized group carrying out a specific function within a colony of social insects. For example, in an ant colony, members of the caste of workers forage for food outside the colony or tend eggs and larvae, while the members of the caste of soldiers, often larger with stronger jaws, are responsible for defense of the colony.

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caste Cultural  

1. One of the four hereditary social divisions in Hinduism. Members of any one caste are restricted in their choice of occupation and may have only limited association with members of other castes.

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Discover More

Caste has come to mean a group of persons set apart by economic, social, religious, legal, or political criteria, such as occupation, status, religious denomination, legal privilege, skin color, or some other physical characteristic. Members of a caste tend to associate among themselves and rarely marry outside the caste. Castes are more socially separate from each other than are social class es.

During the height of segregation in the United States, African-Americans were sometimes loosely referred to as a caste.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• casteism
  noun
• subcaste
  noun
• anticaste
  adjective
• casteless
  adjective
• intercaste
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• castes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of caste

First recorded in 1545–55; from Portuguese casta “race, breed,” noun use of casta, feminine of casto, from Latin castus “pure, chaste ”

Explanation

The word caste was originally associated with India's traditional system of hereditary and rigidly stratified classes, but this noun can now be used to refer to any social group distinguished by shared characteristics, such as rank, economic wealth, or profession. The root of caste is the Latin castus, which means "chaste" or "pure, separated." The word arrived in English through the Portuguese casta, which means "race" or "lineage," and was first used in the 1700s in reference to Hinduism's system of social stratification. By the nineteenth century, though, this noun was used metaphorically to describe any type of group that resembled this, as in the example, "Some sought to abolish the privileges enjoyed by an elite caste of business and financial leaders."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

caste castes

At independence, India adopted a modest 12.5% quota for the “scheduled castes,” or Dalits, widely acknowledged as the most-disadvantaged victims of caste discrimination.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026

These travelers were commonly referred to as “Indios chinos” in the colonial caste structure, though historians say the majority were Filipino.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026

"He transcended social and caste hierarchies through his music," says Krishna.

From BBC ● Jun. 6, 2026

White working-class and precarious middle-class voters were alarmed not only at the upending of the racial caste system but also at what they saw as an unraveling of society in general.

From Salon ● May 6, 2026

The reasons and justifications change over time, as each new caste system reflects and adapts to changes in the social, political, and economic context.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

Last year, the government announced a census to enumerate the country’s castes officially.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026

By some estimates, the vast majority of India’s 1.5 billion people are divided into more than 3,000 castes and 25,000 subcastes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026

Segregated living has existed in rural India for a long time where different castes and religions lived apart.

From BBC ● Dec. 6, 2024

Most ants have two morphologically differentiated adult castes -- queens and workers -- each irreversibly specialized for either reproduction or nonreproductive altruism such as foraging, defense and care of maternal brood.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 22, 2024

One of the most prominent educational institutions at Madras was the Scottish Free Church Mission which had a College for boys and Schools for girls of different castes.

From Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life by Margaret Elizabeth Leigh Child-Villiers

Related Words

• stratum