outcast
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈaʊtkɑːst/ (noun, adjective); /aʊtˈkɑːst/ (verb)
  • (America) IPA: /ˈaʊtkæst/ (noun, adjective); /aʊtˈkæst/ (verb)
Etymology 1

From Middle English outcasten, equivalent to out- + cast.

Verb

outcast (outcasts, present participle outcasting; simple past and past participle outcast)

  1. 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

  1. 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!
Etymology 2

From Middle English outcaste, outecaste, equivalent to out- + cast.

Noun

outcast (plural outcasts)

  1. One that has been excluded from a society or system, a pariah, a leper. [from 14th c.]
  2. (more generally) Synonym of outsider: someone who does not belong, a misfit.
  3. (Scotland) A quarrel.
  4. The amount of increase in the bulk of grain during malting.
Synonyms Translations


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