pariah
English
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Tamil பறையர் (paṟaiyar), from பறையன் (paṟaiyaṉ, “drummer”), from பறை (paṟai, “drum”) or from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Malayalam പറയർ (paṟayaṟ), from പറയൻ (paṟayaṉ, “drummer”), from പറ (paṟa, “drum”). Parai in Tamil or Para in Malayalam refers to a type of large drum designed to announce the king’s notices to the public. The people who made a living using the parai were called paraiyar; in the caste-based society they were in the lower strata, hence the derisive paraiah and pariah.
Pronunciation
Noun
pariah (plural pariahs)
- A person who is rejected from society or home; 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.
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 [1])
- 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 Thesaurus:outcast
Derived terms
Translations
an outcast
|
member of one of the oppressed social castes in India
|