The word pariah, meaning an outcast or any person or animal that is generally despised or avoided, comes from the Tamil word paraiyar, the plural of paraiyan, which literally means “drummer.”

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 3rd, 2008 at 8:38 pm and is filed under Language. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.