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

Three sides of a square were formed by 1,500 Spanish and half-caste volunteers and 500 regular troops.

From The Philippine Islands by John Foreman

This extract showed the Pitcairn Island, hitherto scarcely known and supposed to be uninhabited, had been visited by the whaler, which found thereon a white man and several half-caste families.

From The Naval Pioneers of Australia by Louis Becke

See," said he, to the only man among them who spoke his dialect—a Fijian half-caste from Loma-loma—"this is my scheme.

From The Ebbing Of The Tide South Sea Stories - 1896 by Louis Becke