CASTE
What does "CASTE" mean?
A fixed social class, especially in a system where status is hereditary.
Meanings
- A hereditary social rank or class, notably within traditional Hindu society in India. Reforms aimed to dismantle discrimination based on caste.
- Any rigid system or division of social classes. The old town had a caste of merchants that ran everything.
- A specialized form of social insect within a colony, such as workers or soldiers. Termite colonies divide labor among distinct castes. technical
Did you know?
- The word 'caste' is not originally Indian: it comes from the Portuguese 'casta', meaning breed or lineage, which Portuguese colonizers used to label the social divisions they found in India.
Word origin
From Portuguese and Spanish 'casta' ('race, lineage, breed'), from Latin 'castus' ('pure, chaste'); Portuguese traders applied the word to the hereditary classes they encountered in India.
Remember it
CASTE = a CAST that is SET - a rigid mold you're born into and can't easily reshape. Note the silent final E that splits it from 'cast'.
A little poem
A line drawn before your birth,
inked in a language not your own-
and called the order of things.
tercet
What it teaches
A wall is hardest to see when you were taught it was the shape of the world.
Quick facts
What does CASTE mean?
A fixed social class, especially in a system where status is hereditary.
Is CASTE a valid word?
Yes — CASTE is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is CASTE?
CASTE has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does CASTE come from?
From Portuguese and Spanish 'casta' ('race, lineage, breed'), from Latin 'castus' ('pure, chaste'); Portuguese traders applied the word to the hereditary classes they encountered in India.
What can CASTE teach us?
A wall is hardest to see when you were taught it was the shape of the world.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.