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Glite Dictionary
🚶 A rejected person 📦 A discarded thing 🗑️ No longer wanted
castoff

castoff

3 6.2
A person who others reject or leave out
  • noun
  • /ˈkæstˌɔf/
  • Offensive
translation icon : paria
  • I registered their presence as dire examples: their exhausted cars, the castoff armchairs they took from my parents' house, their splayed, veiny legs.
  • roster full of castoffs
  • corporate castoffs

Examples

  • "Everybody's somebody's castoff."

    Fiction book (1996)

  • He was beaten by the master; he lived in a shack, wore castoff clothes, and hated his master.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • I try to reuse and recycle when possible, so saving and repairing castoff furniture from the side of the road or from thrift stores is very exciting to me.

    Blog text (28)

  • The support group welcomes castoffs from society who are seeking a fresh start.

  • After being rejected by his friends, he felt like a castoff with nowhere to belong.

  • Many castoffs from the team found new opportunities to shine in a different league.

Synonyms

outcast
vscastoff
81 5.1

A person who other people reject and avoid

can apply more widely to being excluded or abandoned in any context
reject
vscastoff
  • Offensive
17 3.9

A person or thing that others do not accept

focuses more on being abandoned or left out than on judgmental rejection
castaway
vscastoff
13 7.2

A person left alone on a deserted island after a shipwreck or abandoned by other people

means social rejection or exclusion rather than physical isolation
rejectee
vscastoff
1 6.8

A person who is not chosen for a group or opportunity

is broader, including being abandoned or excluded beyond mere refusal
outcaste
vscastoff
  • Archaic
9.9

A person who is excluded from a caste or social group and treated as outside society

is a general term for rejection not limited to caste systems

Antonyms

accepted
1.3

Approved and considered correct by most people in a group

How Accepted

outsider
283 4.1
castoff
  • Offensive
3 6.2
pariah
27 9.0

Surface Forms

castoff singular
castoffs plural

Morphology

castoff = cast (semi-transparent) = off + cast

The noun meaning 'a rejected person' is a metaphorical extension of 'cast off' (thrown away), so the link is clear but involves social/figurative nuance. [Postprocessing: moved 'off' from base_words to prefix]

Etymology

Castoff comes from cast 'throw' and off 'away', so you can picture a person 'thrown away' from a group. That's why a castoff can mean someone who is rejected or abandoned.