Word.ws English Dictionary

casta

casta noun: a hierarchical system of race classification created by Spanish elites in Hispanic America during the eighteenth century.

Noun (1)

casta (uncountable)

  1. (historical) A hierarchical system of race classification created by Spanish elites in Hispanic America during the eighteenth century.
    • Both of these political developments called attention to family lineage. In the Mexican colonial context, casta took on new meanings, referring to all the people of Mexico who were not of “pure” Spanish heritage.2012, Mary Jo Maynes, Ann Waltner, The Family: A World History, Oxford University Press, →ISBN

Noun (2) capitalized: Casta

Casta

  1. The institutionalized system of racial and social stratification in 17th-century Mexico.
  2. Variety, in reference to and in names of Portugal grapes or wine.

Origin of casta

Borrowed from Spanish casta.

From Spanish and Portuguese casta (“lineage; breed; race”), either from Gothic *𐌺𐌰𐍃𐍄𐍃 (*kasts) or a derivative of Latin castus (“pure”).

Questions about casta

What does casta mean?
Casta means a hierarchical system of race classification created by Spanish elites in Hispanic America during the eighteenth century.
What part of speech is casta?
Casta is a noun.

Words near casta in the dictionary

  1. cast-netting
  2. cast-off
  3. cast-offs
  4. cast-on
  5. cast-ons
  6. casta
  7. castabilities
  8. castability
  9. castable
  10. castables
  11. Castagna

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: casta (page history and authors); Casta (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “casta.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/casta. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.