half-caste

American  

[haf-kast, hahf-kahst] / ˈhæfˌkæst, ˈhɑfˌkɑst /

noun

1. a contemptuous term used to refer to a person of mixed racial or ethnic descent.

2. a contemptuous term used to refer to a person of mixed European and Hindu or European and Muslim parentage.

3. a contemptuous term used to refer to a person descended from parents of two different social strata.

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adjective

1. of or relating to a half-caste.

half-caste British  

noun

1. a person having parents of different races, esp the offspring of a European and an Indian

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adjective

1. of, relating to, or designating such a person

Etymology

Origin of half-caste

First recorded in 1785–95

Example Sentences

That, of course, sidestepped the real question — what role did racism, or even just race, play in a culture where the term “half-caste” is still used in some places with a completely straight face?

From Washington Post

His grandmother spoiled him as a “white” child, other kids called him a “half-caste”, and he was never sure which ethnic group to join in the school playground.

From The Guardian

“Like the other half-caste children,” Gyasi writes, “he could not fully claim either half of himself, neither his father’s whiteness nor his mother’s blackness. Neither England nor the Gold Coast.”

From Washington Post

Mr. Bhardwaj has directed two other freewheeling Shakespeare adaptations, both wonderful: “Maqbool,” a “Macbeth” set in the Bombay underworld, and “Omkara,” an “Othello” whose title character is a half-caste gangster general in the dusty heartland.

From New York Times

The prejudice Marley endured as a boy for being "half-caste" — he was the son of a black woman and an itinerant white man, Capt.

From Seattle Times