Meaning & use
social outcast
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Meaning
nouncountable
A person who is shut out or rejected by the people around them and is not accepted as a normal member of society.
Grammar: Plural is social outcasts: they were treated as social outcasts.
Patterns
- treat someone as a social outcast
- become a social outcast
After the scandal, he felt like a social outcast in his own town.
The novel follows a girl who is a social outcast at her new school.
Some villagers treated the stranger as a social outcast.
Word forms
| plural | social outcasts |
|---|
Common combinations
- become a social outcast
- She feared she would become a social outcast if she told the truth.
- treated like a social outcast
- He was treated like a social outcast after he lost his job.
- feel like a social outcast
- New students can feel like social outcasts in the first week.
- branded a social outcast
- The family was branded social outcasts by the community.
Synonyms and how they differ
- pariah
- Pariah is stronger and more literary, suggesting open scorn from the whole community.
- outsider
- Outsider simply means not part of a group and need not suggest rejection.
- misfit
- A misfit does not fit in because of personality, whereas a social outcast is actively pushed out.
- loner
- A loner chooses to be alone, while a social outcast is excluded by others.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: social outcast or outcast?
social outcast vs outcast
Outcast alone can mean any rejected person; social outcast adds the idea of society or peers as the rejecting group.
Practice
After the argument, the whole class ignored her and she became a ____.
Choose one answer.
Being ignored by everyone describes a social outcast. A social butterfly is the opposite, a person who is very popular.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “social outcast”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.