apartheid

Etymology

Borrowed from Afrikaans apartheid (literally “separateness, apartness”) (1929 in a South African socio-political context), from Afrikaans apart (“separate”) + suffix -heid, cognate of English -hood.

noun

1. (South Africa, historical) The policy of racial separation used by South Africa from 1948 to 1990.
2. (by extension) Any similar policy of racial separation/segregation and discrimination, particularly when in favor of a minority rule.
   The 1973 Apartheid Convention conferred universal jurisdiction to the state signatories to prosecute those who commit apartheid.
   When the doors of a business are open to the public, they must be open to all regardless of race if apartheid is not to become engrained in our public […] . 1963, Justice William O. Douglas, concurring, Lombard v. Louisiana (373 U.S. 267)
3. (by extension) A policy or situation of segregation based on some specified attribute.
   Fifteen minutes drive to the Brown Trout was guaranteed to satisfy my appetite because there, as with other clubs and hotel bars, a form of sex apartheid was practised. The males assembled in the region of the bar and the opposite gender either sat discreetly detached or strayed outside to gossip gaily among themselves. 2008, Peter Hewitt, Kenya Cowboy: A Police Officer's Account of the Mau Mau Emergency, page 64
   In these annual reports, the religious apartheid practices in India are not mentioned at all. 2009, Moorthy Muthuswamy, Defeating Political Islam: The New Cold War, page 120

verb

1. To impose a policy of segregation of groups of people, especially one based on race.
   Yes, apartheiding the apartheiders, is what the rest of the world is doing. 1986, Stanlake John Thompson Samkange, On Trial for that U.D.I.: A Novel, page 79
   Whatever the reason the blacks have for "apartheiding" Boston, whites should be all for it. 1989, Instauration - Volumes 15-16, page 36
   The most deadly of all ghosts are wandering over Britain and medicine, apartheiding people into superiors and nonentities. 2003, Mayur K. Lakhani, A Celebration of General Practice, page 183
   Speaking of the resulting apartheiding of British Columbia, Cole Harris observed, "racism was built into the landscape of settlement." 2009, Shirley R. Steinberg, Diversity and Multiculturalism: A Reader, page 151
   By 1922, the apartheiding of British Columbia was cemented into a public and private English-language discourse that took for granted how and where one racialized body was placed in relation to another, and in turn how each related to the state system. 2011, Timothy J. Stanley, Contesting White Supremacy, page 64