karass means A network or group of people who are somehow affiliated or linked spiritually. It carries an Arena rating of 1616, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, karass ranks #52 of 13,218 for The Improbable, #255 of 13,218 for Most Sublime Words, #857 of 13,218 for Most Incisive Words, #1,216 of 13,218 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
Why “karass” is a great word
A group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, performing God's will without ever knowing it. Coined by American writer Kurt Vonnegut in 1963 from the fictive language of Bokononism, it names a congregation formed not by choice but by cosmic design. Unlike a "community," which implies shared location or conscious identity, or a "clique," a petty fortress of exclusivity, a karass is an involuntary and often invisible grouping tasked with some unwritten, divine purpose. It is the stranger on the train who offers the exact book you needed, the childhood friend you recall just as they fall ill a continent away, and the collection of disparate souls whose fragmented efforts accidentally preserve a doomed species. It is the hidden architecture of human destiny, a map of connections drawn in invisible ink.
Etymology
Coined by American writer Kurt Vonnegut in 1963, in the novel Cat's Cradle.
noun
- A network or group of people who are somehow affiliated or linked spiritually.“We Bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's Will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a karass by Bokonon […]”
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- granfalloon 86% match — A group of two or more people who imagine or are manipulated to believe they share a connection based on some circumstance of little or no real significance. vs karass →
- koinonia 77% match — Communion by intimate participation, associated with the Christian church. vs karass →
- chavurah 76% match — A small group of like-minded Jews who assemble for prayer, learning, etc. vs karass →
- groupthink 75% match — A process of reasoning or decision-making by a group, especially one characterized by uncritical acceptance of or conformity to a perceived majority view. vs karass →
- constellate 75% match — To combine as a cluster. vs karass →
- cosmopolitanism 75% match — The quality of being cosmopolitan.; The idea that all of humanity belongs to a single moral community. vs karass →
- ummah 75% match — The worldwide Muslim community. vs karass →
- bashert 75% match — preordained, fated vs karass →