Standard Lemma guide

quarter-caste

adj · noun · 2 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

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1

adj

Meaning 1

Having one "half-caste" parent; especially, having three Caucasian and one non-Caucasian grandparents

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: Australia, New-Zealand, derogatory, not-comparable

Examples

  • 2000, Anna Haebich, Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families, 1800-2000, North Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, p. 280, https://books.google.ca/books?id=jF69BwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Sister Kate's Quarter Caste Children's Home, opened in 1933, was the site for implementing the first stages of grooming young, 'nearly-white' children for 'ultimate absorption' into the white community.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

A person with one "half-caste" parent and one Caucasian parent

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: Australia, New-Zealand, derogatory

Examples

  • 2007, Ken Colbung in Sally Morgan, Tjalaminu Mia and Blaze Kwaymullina (eds), Speaking from the Heart: Stories of Life, Family and Country, North Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, p. 67, https://books.google.ca/books?id=izfgb7WGC7oC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false I guess the sort of thing that happened to my mum has happened constantly to Aboriginal people over the years. That's why the whitefellas talk so much about which of us is full blood, half-caste, quarter-caste, and all that other rubbish. I reckon those kinds of images make people think that we are like that doll Pinocchio's father made out of a lot of different things. Who is going to come out with a long nose? Who is going to come out a dark colour, a light colour? Who is going to have curly, black, brown or blond hair? How are we supposed to answer when someone asks, 'But are you really an Aboriginal?' Of course we bloody are! Or when they say, 'Are you a quarter-caste or a half-caste?' Who cares? Why should I have to talk about which bit of me is black and which is white—it's all red when I cut myself.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

From quarter + caste.