different between miscreant vs pariah

English

Alternative forms

• miscreaunt (obsolete)

Etymology

From Old French mescreant (1080) "mis-believer", present participle of mescreire "to misbelieve" (modern mécroire).

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) enPR: m?s?kr?-?nt, IPA^(key): /?m?s.k?i.?nt/

Adjective

miscreant (comparative more miscreant, superlative most miscreant)

1. Lacking in conscience or moral principles; unscrupulous.
2. (theology) Holding an incorrect religious belief.

Translations

Noun

miscreant (plural miscreants)

1. One who has behaved badly, or illegally.

   The teacher sent the miscreants to see the school principal.

2. One not restrained by moral principles; an unscrupulous villain.
   • a. 1719, Joseph Addison, A Riddle of Dean Swift's verfified

     A meagre Catchpole hurries me to fail; No Miscreant, so remorseless, ever tore
     Thy Journals, Fog, or knock'd at Franklin's door

3. (theology) One who holds a false religious belief; a misbeliever.

   • That hast with knightlesse guile and trecherous train

     Faire knighthood fowly shamed

   (Can we find and add a quotation of De Quincey to this entry?)

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:miscreant.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:troublemaker
• See also Thesaurus:villain

Translations

Anagrams

• Encratism, minecarts

English

Etymology

From Tamil ?????? (pa?aiyar), from ?????? (pa?aiya?, “drummer”), from ??? (pa?ai, “drum”) or from Malayalam ???? (pa?ayar), from ???? (pa?ayan, “drummer”), from ?? (pa?a, “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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p???a??/
• Rhymes: -a??

Noun

pariah (plural pariahs)

1. A person who is rejected from society or home; an outcast.
2. A demographic group, species, or community that is generally despised.
3. Someone in exile.
4. A member of one of the oppressed social castes in India.

Quotations

• 2014: Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Executive Presence, Prologue

  I didn’t even need to finish the article to understand the damage it would do—which was swift and devastating. In a matter of weeks, Creating a Life was DOA—and, figuratively speaking, so was I. 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.

• 1985 — Robert Holmes, The Two Doctors, p 14

  ‘I’m a pariah, outlawed from Time Lord society.’

• 1842 — William Makepeace Thackeray, The Fitz-Boodle Papers (Fitz-Boodle's Confessions, preface [1])

  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.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:outcast

Derived terms

• pariah dog
• pariah kite

Translations

Anagrams

• Pahari, Pirahã, raphia