pariah
nounEtymology
From Tamil பறையர் (paṟaiyar), from பறையன் (paṟaiyaṉ, “drummer”), from பறை (paṟai, “drum”) or from 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. Alternatively, derived from Sanskrit पर (para, “distant; outsider”).
Definitions
Synonym of outcast
Synonym of outcast: A person despised and excluded by their family, community, or society, especially a member of the untouchable castes in Indian society.
- I’m a pariah, outlawed from Time Lord society.
- […] 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.
A similarly despised group of people or species of animal.
- This scenario could lead to war crimes the scale of which has not been seen in Europe since the Nazis — crimes that would make Vladimir Putin, his cronies and Russia as a country all global pariahs.
Ellipsis of pariah dog (“an Indian breed, any stray dog in Indian contexts”).
The neighborhood
Derived
nonpariah, pariah arrack, pariah dog, pariahdom, pariahism, pariah kite, pariahlike, pariahship
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for pariah. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA