Pariah

Noun

 * 1) An outcast
 * 2) A demographic group, species, or community that is generally despised.
 * 3) Someone in exile
 * 4) A member of one of the oppressed social castes in India.
 * 5) A person who is rejected (from society or home)

Quotations

 * 1842 — William Makepeace Thackeray, The Fitz-Boodle Papers (Fitz-Boodle's Confessions, preface )
 * 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.
 * 1985 — Robert Holmes, The Two Doctors, p 14
 * ‘I’m a pariah, outlawed from Time Lord society.’

Synonyms

 * See also Thesaurus:outcast

Related terms

 * pop culture pariah

Thesaurus
DP, Diogenes, Hieronymian, Hieronymite, Ishmael, Timon of Athens, alien, anchoress, anchorite, ascetic, bedridden invalid, case, castaway, character, cloistered monk, closet cynic, crackpot, crank, declasse, derelict, desert fathers, desert saints, displaced person, eccentric, eremite, evictee, exile, expatriate, expellee, fanatic, hermit, hermitess, hobo, homebody, invalid, isolationist, kook, leper, lone wolf, loner, marabout, maverick, meshuggenah, natural, nonconformist, nut, odd fellow, oddball, oddity, original, outcast, outcast of society, outcaste, outlaw, outsider, persona non grata, pillar saint, pillarist, queer duck, queer fish, queer specimen, rara avis, recluse, screwball, seclusionist, shut-in, social outcast, solitaire, solitary, solitudinarian, stay-at-home, stylite, tramp, type, unacceptable person, undesirable, untouchable, zealot

Etymology
From பறையர்:, from பறையன்:, from பறை:. Parai refers in Tamil 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-ridden society they were in the lower strata, hence the derisive paraiah and pariah. Now the term is used to describe an outcast in English.

Anagrams

 * Pahari
 * Pirahã