outcast
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈaʊtkɑːst/ (noun, adjective); /aʊtˈkɑːst/ (verb)
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈaʊtkæst/ (noun, adjective); /aʊtˈkæst/ (verb)
Audio (Southern England): (file) - Rhymes: -aʊtkɑːst, -ɑːst, -aʊtkæst, -æst
- Homophone: outcaste
Etymology 1
From Middle English outcasten, equivalent to out- + cast.
Verb
outcast (third-person singular simple present outcasts, present participle outcasting, simple past and past participle outcast)
- To cast out; to banish. [from 14th c.]
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 16, page 395:
- And her faire yellow locks behind her flew, / Looſely diſperſt with puff of euery blaſt: / All as a blazing ſtarre doth farre outcaſt / His hearie beames, and flaming lockes diſpredd, / At ſight whereof the people ſtand aghaſt: […]
Adjective
outcast (comparative more outcast, superlative most outcast)
- That has been cast out; banished, ostracized. [from 14th c.]
- 1851, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Golden Legend, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC, page 35:
- O, horrible fate! Outcast, rejected, / As one with pestilence infected!
- 2019, Victor C. de Munck, Romantic Love in America, page 152:
- We were not a big huggie family so I was very, very encased in a little stay-away-from-me shell growing-up, and here I got to open up and feel safe and able to touch and hold and be able to be with another human being, which was really a big relief, a very positive part of my understanding of myself that I wasn't just this outcast evil outsider of everything.
Etymology 2
From Middle English outcaste, outecaste, equivalent to out- + cast.
Noun
outcast (plural outcasts)
- One that has been excluded from a society or system, a pariah, a leper. [from 14th c.]
- 2015 March 19, Mekado Murphy, “'The Divergent Series: Insurgent' Creates New Worlds”, in The New York Times:
- The other factions believe that those who are Factionless are nomads and outcasts. But they are actually a fully functioning community.
- (more generally) Synonym of outsider: someone who does not belong, a misfit.
- 2019, Amanda Koci, Henry Walter, Charlie Puth, Maria Smith, Victor Thellm Gigi Grombacher, Roland Spreckle (lyrics and music), “So Am I”, performed by Ava Max:
- Do you ever feel like an outcast?
You don't have to fit into the format
Oh, but it's okay to be different
'Cause baby, so am I
- (Scotland) A quarrel.
- The amount of increase in the bulk of grain during malting.
Synonyms
Translations
someone excluded from a society or system, a pariah, a leper
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Anagrams
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