caste

Note: Portuguese casta has exact counterparts in Spanish and Catalan casta, none of which are attested before the fifteenth century. The word has traditionally been taken as descending from a feminine noun derivative of Latin castus "free from (the thing named), untainted by vice, pure" (see chaste), though this etymology has been resisted by Joan Coromines, who points out that the earliest uses do not imply purity (see Diccionario crítico etymológico castellano e hispánico, s.v.). The phrase hacer casta (hacer "to do, make") means "to breed (animals)"—likewise, the phrase para casta "for breeding." The word would seem to refer to both the act of breeding and the succession of things bred. Coromines is surely correct in noting that Latin castus has influenced the later semantic development of casta. However, his hypothesis that an unattested Gothic word cognate with Old Icelandic kǫs, kǫstr "heap, pile" is the source of Iberian Romance casta is not convincing, The senses of the English noun cast entry 2 that he sees as most relevant, such as "a set of characters or persons" or "characteristic quality," are all late developments from the verb meaning "to throw" and can scarcely be traced back to proto-Germanic.