outcast
/ˈaʊtkɑːst/US/ˈaʊtkæst/
outcast verb: to cast out; to banish.
Verb
outcast (third-person singular simple present outcasts, present participle outcasting, simple past and past participle outcast or (common, but sometimes proscribed) outcasted)
- To cast out; to banish.
- 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: […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 16, page 395
- It means equal ruin to me, as the world reckons it — outcasting, the loss of my appointment, the breaking off my life's work. I pay my price.1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Hill of Illusion”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 84
Adjective
outcast (comparative more outcast, superlative most outcast)
- That has been cast out; banished, ostracized.
- O, horrible fate! Outcast, rejected, / As one with pestilence infected!1851, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Golden Legend, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC, page 35
- We were not a big huggie family so I was very, very encased in a little stay-away-from-me shell growing-up, and here I got to open up and feel safe and able to touch and hold and be able to be with another human being, which was really a big relief, a very positive part of my understanding of...2019, Victor C. de Munck, Romantic Love in America, page 152
Noun
outcast (plural outcasts)
- One that has been excluded from a society or a system, a pariah, a leper.
- If ever you chance upon the whole truth about any outcast or many, never tell it to just anybody, or at least not right away; unjust exclusion from a society is just one kind of hardship.
- The other factions believe that those who are Factionless are nomads and outcasts. But they are actually a fully functioning community.2015 March 19, Mekado Murphy, “'The Divergent Series: Insurgent' Creates New Worlds”, in The New York Times
- Synonym of outsider: someone who does not belong, a misfit.
- Do you ever feel like an outcast?
You don't have to fit into the format
Oh, but it's okay to be different
'Cause baby, so am I2019, Amanda Koci, Henry Walter, Charlie Puth, Maria Smith, Victor Thellm Gigi Grombacher, Roland Spreckle, “So Am I”, performed by Ava Max
- Synonyms:
- outsider
- Do you ever feel like an outcast?
- A quarrel.
- The amount of increase in the bulk of grain during malting.
outcast meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
outcast in Tamil
- தள்ளி வைக்கப்பட்டவர், விலக்கப்பட்டவர்
outcast in Urdu
- چنڈال, خارج
outcast in Bengali
- সমাজচ্যুত, পরিত্যক্ত ব্যক্তি
outcast in Malayalam
- നിന്ദ്യൻ, നീചൻ, ഹീനൻ
More languagesFewer languages
- outcast in Kannada
- ಹೊರಹಾಕಲ್ಪಟ್ಟವನು, ಸಮಾಜ ಬಾಹಿರ ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿ, ಬಹಿಷ್ಕೃತ, ಕುಲಭ್ರಷ್ಟ
- outcast in Sanskrit
- चण्डाल caṇḍāla, वृषल vṛṣalá
- outcast in Arabic
- مَنْبُوذ manbūḏ, مَنْبُوذَة manbūḏa
- outcast in Indonesian
- paria
- outcast in Persian
- پاریا pâriyâ
Examples of outcast in a sentence
- The manager would refer to “combos” and “gin burglars” as though they were social outcasts.
- My dear friend, are you to become that hapless kind of outcast, a champion of lost causes?
- I have a soft spot for outcasts.
Synonyms of outcast
3 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of outcast
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | outcasts |
| present participle | outcasting |
| past participle | outcast |
| past | outcast |
| past participle common error-unknown-tag proscribed sometimes | outcasted |
| past common error-unknown-tag proscribed sometimes | outcasted |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more outcast |
| superlative | most outcast |
| Noun | |
| plural | outcasts |
Origin of outcast
From Middle English outcasten, equivalent to out- + cast.
From Middle English outcaste, outecaste, equivalent to out- + cast.
Words formed from outcast
Words that rhyme with outcast
Questions about outcast
- What does outcast mean?
- Outcast means to cast out; to banish.
- What is outcast in Tamil?
- Outcast in Tamil is தள்ளி வைக்கப்பட்டவர், விலக்கப்பட்டவர். See Outcast meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is outcast?
- Outcast can be a verb, an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce outcast?
- Outcast is pronounced /ˈaʊtkɑːst/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of outcast?
- The past tense of outcast is outcast.
Words near outcast in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: outcast (page history and authors); outcast (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); outcast (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); outcast (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); outcast (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); outcast (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); चण्डाल (Sanskrit) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-outcast.wav.
Cite this entry: “outcast.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/outcast. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.