keres means 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.
keres is pronounced /ˈkɪ.riːz/.
Why “keres” is a great word
Keres are spirits of violent death and carnivorous doom, and also the name of a Pueblo people of New Mexico and their language, from Ancient Greek Κῆρες (Kêres, literally 'Death Spirits, Doom'), possibly from the root *ker- meaning 'to cut' or 'to destroy'. Unlike Thanatos, the singular personification of peaceful mortality, or Keresan, the anthropological term for the linguistic study of the culture, Keres carries the weight of violent plurality—the black wings circling a battlefield, the hunger in a fatal gash, and the enduring community etched into red mesas; it is a word that binds the destroyers to the ones who endure.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek Κῆρες (Kêres, literally “Death Spirits, Doom, Heart”).
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.
- The language or language family traditionally spoken by the Keres Pueblo people.
adj
- Of or pertaining to the Keres Pueblo people or language of New Mexico.
noun
- An indigenous Pueblo people of New Mexico that speak the Keres language.
- An individual member of these people.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- kerait 55% match — Of or pertaining to a Kypchaq nation which dominated the central Eurasian steppe prior to the rise of the Mongol empire. vs keres →
- korred 54% match — A long-haired nocturnal and often malevolent mythological creature of Breton and Welsh tradition. vs keres →
- kareth 53% match — Extirpation or cutting off, a form of punishment for sin, mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and later Jewish writings. vs keres →
- querendis 53% match — Synonym of Querendi (“Native American group”). vs keres →
- cerberean 51% match — Of or relating to, or resembling, Cerberus in Greek mythology. vs keres →
- kikimora 50% match — a female house spirit in the Slavic mythology vs keres →
- karet 49% match — A severe punishment prescribed for certain offenses, interpreted variously as expulsion or extinction of the soul. vs keres →
- persephonean 49% match — Of or relating to Persephone in Ancient Greek mythology. vs keres →