pariah

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: pa=ri=ah

CIDE DICTIONARY

pariah, n. [From Tamil paraiyan, pl. paraiyar, one of the low caste, fr. parai a large drum, because they beat the drums at certain festivals.].

•  One of an aboriginal people of Southern India, regarded by the four castes of the Hindus as of very low grade. They are usually the serfs of the Sudra agriculturalists. See Caste.  Balfour (Cyc. of India).  [1913 Webster]
•  An outcast; one despised by society.  [1913 Webster]

Pariah dog (Zoöl.), a mongrel race of half-wild dogs which act as scavengers in Oriental cities. -- Pariah kite (Zoöl.), a species of kite (Milvus govinda) which acts as a scavenger in India.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

pariah, n.
1 a social outcast.
2 hist. a member of a low caste or of no caste in S. India.

Idiom

pariah-dog = PYE-DOG.

Etymology

Tamil paraiyar pl. of paraiyan hereditary drummer f. parai drum

THESAURUS

pariah

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

ROGET THESAURUS

pariah

Commonalty

N commonality, commonalty, democracy, obscurity, low condition, low life, low society, low company, bourgeoisie, mass of the people, mass of society, Brown Jones and Robinson, lower classes, humbler classes, humbler orders, vulgar herd, common herd, rank and file, hoc genus omne, the many, the general, the crowd, the people, the populace, the multitude, the million, the masses, the mobility, the peasantry, king Mob, proletariat, fruges consumere nati, demos, hoi polloi, great unwashed, man in the street, mob, rabble, rabble rout, chaff, rout, horde, canaille, scum of the people, residuum of the people, dregs of the people, dregs of society, swinish multitude, foex populi, trash, profanum vulgus, ignobile vulgus, vermin, riffraff, ragtag and bobtail, small fry, commoner, one of the people, democrat, plebeian, republican, proletary, proletaire, roturier, Mr, Snooks, bourgeois, epicier, Philistine, cockney, grisette, demimonde, peasant, countryman, boor, carle, churl, villain, villein, terrae filius, son of the land, serf, kern, tyke, tike, chuff, ryot, fellah, longshoreman, swain, clown, hind, clod, clodhopper, hobnail, yokel, bog-trotter, bumpkin, plowman, plowboy, rustic, hayseed, lunkhead, chaw-bacon, tiller of the soil, hewers of wood and drawers of water, groundling, gaffer, loon, put, cub, Tony Lumpkin, looby, rube, lout, underling, gamin, rough, pot- wallopper, slubberdegullion, vulgar fellow, low fellow, cad, curmudgeon, upstart, parvenu, skipjack, nobody, nobody one knows, hesterni quirites, pessoribus orti, bourgeois gentilhomme, novus homo, snob, gent, mushroom, no one knows who, adventurer, man of straw, beggar, gaberlunzie, muckworm, mudlark, sans culotte, raff, tatterdemalion, caitiff, ragamuffin, Pariah, outcast of society, tramp, vagabond, bezonian, panhandler, sundowner, chiffonnier, Cinderella, cinderwench, scrub, jade, gossoon, Goth, Vandal, Hottentot, Zulu, savage, barbarian, Yahoo, unlicked cub, rough diamond, barbarousness, barbarism, boeotia, ignoble, common, mean, low, base, vile, sorry, scrubby, beggarly, below par, no great shakes, homely, homespun, vulgar, low-minded, snobbish, plebeian, proletarian, of low parentage, of low origin, of low extraction, of mean parentage, of mean origin, of mean extraction, lowborn, baseborn, earthborn, mushroom, dunghill, risen from the ranks, unknown to fame, obscure, untitled, rustic, uncivilized, loutish, boorish, clownish, churlish, brutish, raffish, rude, unlicked, barbarous, barbarian, barbaric, barbaresque, cockney, born within sound of Bow bells, underling, menial, subaltern, below the salt, dummodo sit dives barbarus ipse placet.

Exclusion

N exclusion, nonadmission, omission, exception, rejection, repudiation, exile, noninclusion, preclusion, prohibition, separation, segregation, seposition, elimination, expulsion, cofferdam, excluding, exclusive, excluded, unrecounted, not included in, inadmissible, exclusive of, barring, except, with the exception of, save, bating, exclusion, seclusion, exclusion, seclusion, privacy, retirement, reclusion, recess, snugness, delitescence, rustication, rus in urbe, solitude, solitariness, isolation, loneliness, estrangement from the world, voluntary exile, aloofness, cell, hermitage, convent, sanctum sanctorum, depopulation, desertion, desolation, wilderness, howling wilderness, rotten borough, Old Sarum, exclusion, excommunication, banishment, exile, ostracism, proscription, cut, cut direct, dead cut, inhospitality, inhospitableness, dissociability, domesticity, Darby and Joan, recluse, hermit, eremite, cenobite, anchoret, anchorite, Simon Stylites, troglodyte, Timon of Athens, Santon, solitaire, ruralist, disciple of Zimmermann, closet cynic, Diogenes, outcast, Pariah, castaway, pilgarlic, wastrel, foundling, wilding, secluded, sequestered, retired, delitescent, private, bye, out of the world, out of the way, the world forgetting by the world forgot, snug, domestic, stay-at-home, unsociable, unsocial, dissocial, inhospitable, cynical, inconversable, unclubbable, sauvage, troglodytic, solitary, lonely, lonesome, isolated, single, estranged, unfrequented, uninhabitable, uninhabited, tenantless, abandoned, deserted, deserted in one's utmost need, unfriended, kithless, friendless, homeless, lorn, forlorn, desolate, unvisited, unintroduced, uninvited, unwelcome, under a cloud, left to shift for oneself, derelict, outcast, banished, noli me tangere, among them but not of them, and homeless near a thousand homes I stood, far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, makes a solitude and calls it peace, magna civitas magna solitudo, never less alone than when alone, O sacred solitude! divine retreat!.