Meaning

noun a social policy or racial segregation involving political and economic and legal discrimination against people who are not Whites; the former official policy in South Africa

originEtymology tree Dutch apart Proto-Indo-European *keyt-der. Proto-Germanic *haiduzder. Proto-West Germanic *-haidu Old Dutch -heit Middle Dutch -heit Dutch -heid Dutch apartheid Afrikaans apartheidbor. English apartheid Borrowed from Afrikaans apartheid (literally “separateness, apartness”) (1929 in a South African socio-political context), from Afrikaans apart (“separate”) + suffix -heid, cognate…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0