Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Pariah
Pa′ri-ah
,Noun.
[From Tamil
paraiyan
, pl. paraiyar
, one of the low caste, fr. parai
a large drum, because they beat the drums at certain festivals.] 1.
One of an aboriginal people of Southern India, regarded by the four castes of the Hindus as of very low grade. They are usually the serfs of the Sudra agriculturalists. See
Caste
. Balfour (Cyc. of India).
2.
An outcast; one despised by society.
Pariah dog
(Zool.)
, a mongrel race of half-wild dogs which act as scavengers in Oriental cities.
– Pariah kite
(Zool.)
, a species of kite (
Milvus govinda
) which acts as a scavenger in India.Definition 2024
pariah
pariah
English
Noun
pariah (plural pariahs)
- An outcast.
- A demographic group, species, or community that is generally despised.
- Someone in exile.
- A member of one of the oppressed social castes in India.
- A person who is rejected (from society or home).
Quotations
- 2014: Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Executive Presence, Prologue
- I didn’t even need to finish the article to understand the damage it would do—which was swift and devastating. In a matter of weeks, Creating a Life was DOA—and, figuratively speaking, so was I. I went from being a much-feted author to a pariah, since one of the many problems of being trashed on the front page of the New York Times is that everyone is in the know.
- 1985 — Robert Holmes, The Two Doctors, p 14
- ‘I’m a pariah, outlawed from Time Lord society.’
- 1842 — William Makepeace Thackeray, The Fitz-Boodle Papers (Fitz-Boodle's Confessions, preface )
- What is this smoking that it should be considered a crime? I believe in my heart that women are jealous of it, as of a rival. They speak of it as of some secret, awful vice that seizes upon a man, and makes him a pariah from genteel society.
Synonyms
- See also Wikisaurus:outcast
Related terms
- pop culture pariah
Translations
an outcast
member of one of the oppressed social castes in India