keres
/ˈkɪɹ.iz/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.42 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
The goddesses of death, specifically cruel and violent deaths, including death in battle, by accident, murder or ravaging disease. They numbered in the thousands and were the daughters of Nyx and Erebus, and the sisters of Thanatos and Hypnos. Their Roman counterparts were the Letum or the Tenebrae.
Example Sentences
- "When a Keres dies, a priesthood supervises the burial, not the clan. Members are summoned to the corpse with an offering of corn meal held out in the left hand, routinely associated with the dead (Stevenson 1894, 143). The body is washed by kinswomen, and dressed by kinsmen, who also bury it. Four days after burial, the priesthood handling the funeral returns to the deceased's home to send the breath-heart back to Iatiku (Corn Mother), an alter ego of both U and T, at ShipopU (White 1962, 307). Death is called the birth into ShipopU (Stevenson 1894, 143). In all, death has manly associations through the left hand, priesthoods, and involved rituals."
Etymology
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: Κῆρες
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈkɪɹ.iz/
- British English: /ˈkɪ.riːz/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
Eastern Keres
Western Keres