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

"The exam and education system cuts across caste, class and gender to quite a large degree," Yamini Aiyar, Senior Visiting Fellow at Brown University, told the BBC.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

Several state governments seek to raise caste quotas even higher.

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

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

Historians will likely wonder how we could describe the new caste system as a system of crime control, when it is difficult to imagine a system better designed to create—rather than prevent—crime.

From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

Over the years, quotas have grown to encompass many other groups, including politically powerful landowning castes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026

Proteins, of course; RNA acts as the major-domo, a bridge between the castes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 13, 2025

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

They had very different visions, one of an agrarian caste nation and the other an industrial power based on class, theoretically open to all races or castes.

From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2024

The disturbance in Yucatan which had been for some time fermenting, broke out fiercely in July, 1847, and became, in fact, a long continued war of castes.

From Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican Vol. 1 of 2 A Historical, Geographical, Political, Statistical and Social Account of That Country From the Period of the Invasion by the Spaniards to the Present Time; With a View of the Ancient Aztec Empire and Civilization; A Historical Sketch of the Late War; And Notices of New Mexico and California by Brantz Mayer

Related Words

• stratum