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DictionarycasteInherited social class
noun

caste

KAST/kæst/

A social class determined by birth.

Inherited caste restrictions deny the same family access to the well across generations.

A two-generation comparison of caste-based exclusion at a shared village well: a boy barred beside his father later encounters the same restriction with his own daughter, while access remains with another family across generations.
Etymology
casteLatinpure; separated

The idea of being pure or separated underlies the earlier expression “unmixed race.” This became a name for hereditary social groups, connecting ancestry with fixed social boundaries.

In context

NewsClickin13:00
hinduism is based on graded social inequality right and this is true even gandhi also said the same thing much later after 1920s he started very very strongly indicting the caste system
Present, Past & the Future: Episode 2 - 'The Politics of Appropriation'

More examples

  • The reformers challenge discrimination based on caste.
  • The old system assigns occupations according to caste.
  • The historian studies relations among different castes.

Forms

caste · castes

Similar words

class
A social grouping that need not be fixed by birth.
status
A person's standing without necessarily a hereditary group.