pariah
/pəˈɹaɪə/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.76 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
3
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "Just four years ago the Saudi Crown Prince, widely known by his initials MBS, was a pariah on the world stage after officials in his entourage dismembered the US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, according to a US intelligence assessment."
- "As ecological conditions became unfavorable for pig raising, there was no alternative function which could redeem its existence. The creature became not only useless, but worse than useless—harmful, a curse to touch or merely to see—a pariah 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."
Etymology
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: பறையர், പറയർ, पर