karait

karait is the alternative spelling of krait.

Meaning of krait

krait (plural kraits)

Any of several brightly-coloured, venomous snakes, of the genus Bungarus, of southeast Asia.
- On visiting the General Hospital, on the morning of the 22nd of August, I was informed that one of the punkah coolies had been bitten about 8.30 p.m., the night before, by a krait, whose venom is virulently poisonous.1871 December, Dr. J. Ewart, “How the bite of snakes―supposed to be poisonous―may be cured”, in The Australian Medical Gazette

Karait (plural Karaits)

(obsolete) Obsolete spelling of Karaite (“adherent of Karaism”).
- When the Jewish Church was settled in Judea, after the Babylonian captivity, there were two sorts of men among the members of it; the one was called Zaddikim, or the Righteous, who contented themselves with what was written in the law of Moses only. From these were derived the sects of the...1808, Elizabeth Carter, “Notes on the Bible, &c.”, in Memoirs of the life of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, page 274
- This was the interpretation put upon the text, by the Talmudical Rabbies and the Scribes, which last are stated by Chief Justice Vaughan to have been of more authority in the Hebrew Commonwealth than the Karait Rabbies, who adopted a different interpretation; […]1840, H. R. Reynolds, Considerations on the state of the law regarding Marriages with a Deceased Wife's Sister

Karait (plural Karaits)

(obsolete) Obsolete spelling of Kerait (“member of a particular Turco-Mongol tribal confederation”).
- However it does not appear that the Turks were ever Masters of more than one half of Grand Tatary; for in the Time of Cavar Chan of Turkestan, mentioned often in the foregoing History, who extended his Dominion over Little Bucharia, or Cashgar, we find several Nations in the East, as those of the...1729, A General History of the Turks, Moguls, and Tatars, Vulgarly Called Tartars
- Geographers and historians have been sadly puzzled where to find its site; and some, as Malte Brun, have supposed it to have been merely a summer abode of the Karait and Mongolian Khans, like that of Zheholl, where the emperor or khan long received the British embassy.1831, James Bell, A System of Geography, Popular and Scientific

plural	karaits
plural	Karaits

What is karait the alternative spelling of?: Karait is the alternative spelling of krait.
What part of speech is karait?: Karait is a noun.
What is the plural of karait?: The plural of karait is karaits.

Adapted from Wiktionary: karait (page history and authors); Karait (page history and authors); krait (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “karait.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/karait. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.