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

See Examples For:

half-caste

“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 ● Jun. 13, 2016

Unlike the British, early Dutch colonizers were not discouraged from marrying native women and no social ostracism came to them or their half-caste children.

From Time Magazine Archive

Now he saw at a flash why the half-caste had carried him off, and pursued him so closely and fiercely, yet without doing him the least harm.

From Jack Haydon's Quest by John Jellicoe

White or half-caste priest, missionary, or trader, all were treated the same.

From The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls by Robert Louis Stevenson

After his discovery of Lake Moero, while residing with Kazembe, he unfortunately became acquainted with a half-caste Moor, named Mahommed Ben Sali, who had been detained as a prisoner by the king.

From Great African Travellers From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley by William Henry Giles Kingston