Forms: 6–9 cast, 6, 8– caste. [ad. Sp. and Pg. casta ‘race, lineage, breed’ (Minsheu); orig. according to Diez ‘pure or unmixed (stock or breed),’ f. casta fem. of casto:—L. castus -a pure, unpolluted (see CHASTE). App. at first from Sp.; but in its Indian application from the Portuguese, who had so applied it about the middle of the 16th c. (Garcia, 1563). The current spelling (after F. caste, which appears in the Academie’s Dict. of 1740), is hardly found before 1800; it was previously written cast, and app. often assumed to be merely a particular application of CAST sb.]
† 1. A race, stock or breed (of men). Obs. in general sense.
1555. Fardle Facions, II. i. 118. The Nabatheens…. Their caste is wittye in winning of substaunce.
1596. Raleigh, Disc. Guiana (1787), 134. One sort of people called Tinitiuas, but of two casts as they term them.
1615. Bedwell, Arab. Trudg., Beni, A family, nation, kinred, or cast as they call it.
1704. Collect. Voy. (Churchill), III. 5. Known only to the Indians called Machis, who are a cast of Men that are their Doctors.
1732. Berkeley, Alciphr., vi. § 2. All the various casts or sects of the sons of men have each their faith and their religious system.
1774. J. Bryant, Mythol., II. 328. There is a cast of Indians, who are disciples of Bontas.
b. For Spanish casta, applied in South America, to the several mixed breeds between Europeans, Indians, and Negroes.
1760. trans. Juan & Ulloa’s Voy. S. Amer. (1772), I. I. iv. 29. The inhabitants may be divided into different casts or tribes, who derive their origin from a coalition of Whites, Negroes, and Indians. Ibid., II. VII. v. 53. The inhabitants of Lima are composed of whites or Spaniards, Negroes, Indians, Mestizos, and other casts, proceeding from the mixture of all three. Ibid., II. VIII. viii. 266. Between fifty and sixty families, most of them Mestizos, though their cast is not at all perceivable by their complexion.
c. Breed of animals.
1799. Corse, in Phil. Trans., 205. (Elephants) Both males and females are divided into two casts, by the natives of Bengal, viz. the koomareah and the merghee.
2. spec. One of the several hereditary classes into which society in India has from time immemorial been divided; the members of each caste being socially equal, having the same religious rites, and generally following the same occupation or profession; those of one caste have no social intercourse with those of another.
The original casts were four: 1st, Brahmans or priestly caste; 2nd, the Kshatriyas or military caste; 3rd, the Vaisyas or merchants; 4th, the Sudras, or artisans and laborers. These have in the course of ages been subdivided into an immense multitude, almost every occupation or variety of occupation having now its special caste.
This is now the leading sense, which influences all others.
1613. Purchas, Pilgr., I. (1625), 485 (Y.). The Banians kill nothing: there are thirtie and odde seuerall Casts of these that differ something in Religion.
1630. Lord, Banians, 72 (Y.). The common Bramane hath eighty two Casts or Tribes.
1766. J. H. Grose, Voy. E. Ind., 319 (Y.). The distinction of the Gentoos into their tribes or casts.
1782. Burke, Corr. (1844), III. 7. The illustrious and sacred caste to which you belong.
1796. H. Hunter, trans. St.-Pierre’s Stud. Nat. (1799), III. 772. Her mother … had lately been burnt alive with the body of her father, conformably to the practice of her caste.
1800. Wellington, Lett., in Gurw., Disp., I. 125. They are of the cast of the old Rajahs.
c. 1813. Mrs. Sherwood, Ayah & Lady, Gloss. s.v., The natives of India are divided into various ranks, called casts.
1818. Jas. Mill, British India, I. II. ii. 182. The Hindus were thus divided into four orders or castes.
1875. Maine, Hist. Inst., viii. 244. The problem of the origin of Castes.
b. transf. A hereditary class resembling those of India. fig. A class who keep themselves socially distinct, or inherit exclusive privileges.
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 468. The peasant’s mind should never be inspired with a desire to amend his circumstances by the quitting of his cast.
1816. J. Gilchrist, Philos. Etym., Introd. 18. Likely to unite the learned casts against him and provoke classic hostility.
1833. Tennyson, Lady Clara, v. Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.
1839. Thirlwall, Greece, I. 119. An ancient priestly caste.
1852. Disraeli, Ld. G. Bentinck, xxiv. 497. The peculiar and chosen race touch the hands of all the scum and low castes of Europe.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Wks. (Bohn), II. 136. The feudal system survives in … the social barriers which confine patronage and promotion to a caste.
c. transf. Applied to the different classes in a community of social insects, as ants.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., ii. (1873), 36. The castes are connected together by finely graduated varieties. Ibid., viii. (1873), 230. The castes, moreover, do not commonly graduate into each other.
3. The system or basis of this division among the Hindoos; also the position it confers, as in To lose, or renounce caste.
[1796. in Ann. Rev. (1803), I. 212/1. (Low as it was) he should lose his cast.]
1811. Mrs. Sherwood, Henry & Bearer, 63. He has lost caste for becoming a Christian.
1858. Max Müller, Chips (1880), II. xxvii. 302. In India caste, in one form or other, has existed from the earliest times.
1858. J. B. Norton, Topics, 181. Nothing but the stationary institutions of India, especially that of caste, could have preserved the village system so long.
b. gen. and fig. A system of rigid social distinctions in a community; to lose caste: to lose social rank, to descend in the social scale.
1816. Times, 6 July, 3/2, in Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 918. Loss of cast in society.
1828. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. III. (1863), 65. A natural fear of losing caste among her neighbours.
1841. Myers, Cath. Th., v. 423. [Christianity] exorcises the spirit of caste.
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., Civiliz., Wks. (Bohn), III. 9. The diffusion of knowledge, overrunning all the old barriers of caste.
1882. Hinsdale, Garfield & Educ., II. 240. In this country there are no classes in the British sense of that word,—no impassable barriers of caste.
4. attrib. and in comb., as caste feeling, system; caste-ridden adj. See also HALF-CASTE.
1840. Arnold, Lett., in Life & Corr. (1844), II. ix. 200. The caste system is an insuperable difficulty.
1868. M. Pattison, Academ. Org., § 4. 73. By the abolition of the rank of ‘nobleman’ … the last remnant of the caste system will be swept away.
1875. Hamerton, Intell. Life, VIII. i. 279–80. The caste-feeling in one class or another.
Hence Castehood, the condition of belonging to a caste; Castism, a system resembling caste; Casteless a., devoid of castes.
1862. R. Patterson, Ess. Hist. & Art, 464. Even the outcasts—those who had fallen or been expelled from castehood—band themselves together in castes of their own.
1852. Manchester Examiner & Times, 14 Feb., 4/4. The possession of hereditary acres is the sacred symbol of castism in this country.
1881. J. Kerr (title), Essays on Castism and Sectism.
1857. Ormskirk Advertiser, 23 July, 3/5. The only cure is … to make the Brahmin become a casteless servant of the State.
1886. Fortn. Rev., Feb., 103. The dominion of a busy, roving, casteless nation.
