pariah
UK[pəˈraɪə]US[pəˈraɪə]
n
A person who is despised or rejected by society; an outcast.
Etymology
The word 'pariah' entered English in the early 17th century from Portuguese 'paria', which itself derived from Tamil 'paṟaiyar', the plural of 'paṟaiyan'. In its original context, it referred to a member of a low caste in southern India, specifically a drummer, as the term is related to the Tamil word for a type of drum. Through colonial usage, the term generalized in English to denote any person of low social standing. By the early 19th century, it had fully evolved into its modern abstract sense of a social outcast, someone despised or excluded by mainstream society, shedding its specific ethnic and occupational connotations.
Analysis
This word is a loanword from Tamil, adopted into English as an unanalyzable simplex. Its components within the source language are not direct substrings of the English spelling.
Examples
After he reported the corruption, he was treated like a pariah by his former colleagues.
The disease unfairly turned the victims into social pariahs.
The political party became an international pariah due to its aggressive policies.