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English
Verb
lose caste (third-person singular simple present loses caste, present participle losing caste, simple past and past participle lost caste)
- (South Asia) To lose one's status as a member of one's caste of birth.
- 1808, “Moral Character of the Hindoos, in Their Interior Department” in The Literary Panorama, London: C. Taylor, Volume 3, p. 141,
- Attachment to a master, a family, or a government of a different religion, is that which cannot be produced in the mind of a Hindoo, while under the power of his Gooroo or his Depta. But if they lose caste, and embrace Christianity, not by force, but from pure conviction, they become other men.
- 1857, D. Urquhart, The Rebellion of India, London: D. Bryce, “Mr. Disraeli’s Speech Reviewed,” p. 14,
- I would now ask what results could follow from enforcing on the Indian army the biting of a substance which they could not place between their lips without losing caste, and becoming objects of abhorrence to their co-religionaries, their friends and their families
1993, Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy, London: QPD, Chapter 9.11, p. 577:An uncle of mine in Delhi thinks that I have become polluted, that I have lost caste by working with leather.
- To fall in social standing; to suffer a loss of status or reputation.
1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “In Which the Reader, if He or She Resort to the Fifth Chapter of This Second Book Will Perceive a Contrast Not Uncommon in Matrimonial Cases”, in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. , volume II, London: Richard Bentley, , →OCLC, page 297:He was degraded in their eyes; he had lost caste and station before the very paupers; he had fallen from all the height and pomp of beadleship to the lowest depth of the most snubbed hen-peckery.
1952, Ralph Ellison, chapter 13, in Invisible Man, New York: Vintage, published 1972, page 259:Why, with others present, it would be worse than if I had accused him of raping an old woman […] Bledsoe would disintegrate, disinflate! With a profound sigh he’d drop his head in shame. He’d lose caste. The weekly newspapers would attack him. […] His rivals would denounce him as a bad example for the youth.
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