caste system
7
6.5
- noun
- /ˈkæst ˈsɪstəm/
:
sistema de castas
- In India, the caste system determines a person's social status based on birth.
- Hindu caste system
- maintain the caste system
If you don't, it sets up a caste system, and that caste system is lethal to democracy.
- If you don't, it sets up a caste system, and that caste system is lethal to democracy.
- And the only way you can get above that class or caste system is through education and opportunity.
- But in North Korea, interesting enough, they may be they have a caste system.
- We're maybe supposed to be questioning the caste system and monarchies, but then we aren't really at all.
- It's about social levels and stuff and we should see it through those through that prism versus just racism where we can start to heal if we see it as a caste system.
- It started from the caste system in India, right where the goal was to get your poor daughter to somehow marry a guy from one level up.
- It's like family caste system, three big categories, warrior, wavering and hostile.
Examples
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More than 70 percent of Nepal's population is Hindu, and the Hindu caste system has deep roots there.
Academic text (2005) -
Indians observe that the caste system, as it functions in village India, was never successfully established overseas.
Academic text (1994) -
And the only way you can get above that class or caste system is through education and opportunity.
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But here, it's a total caste system.
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You could call this a caste system like was in place in India or even in pre modern England, right?
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And in India, you know, caste system is not great for many reasons, but everybody has a place, Everybody belongs.
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Here is the middle class controlling historical consciousness in order to maintain its own caste system.
Academic text (1993) -
This is an ironclad foundation of any caste system.
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How has the Indian caste system affected the life of Kunikuttan?
Academic text (2009) -
The caste system here was modified, and a unique form of Hinduism developed.
Academic text (2007)
Antonyms
How Hierarchical
7
6.5
- Specialized
3
7.9
1
4.6
6
7.9
1
7.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'caste' (a birth-based social group) combined with 'system' (an organized set) yields an organized social structure of castes. This construction is transparent and has clear cross‑linguistic parallels, so a B1 learner who knows both words can reasonably infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Caste system comes from the Portuguese word caste, from 'casta' meaning 'breed' or 'race', which early visitors used to describe groups that stayed the same from one generation to the next. So imagine people put into fixed groups at 'birth', and that image explains why the phrase means a social order where status is 'fixed for life'.