Word.ws English Dictionary

karezza

/kɑˈɹɛtsə/

karezza noun: non-religious spiritual sexual practices that draw upon tantric techniques of body control but do not involve any of tantra's cultural or iconographic symbolism; intended to promote birth control, equality for women, and marital pleasure and fidelity.

Noun (1)

karezza (uncountable)

  1. Non-religious spiritual sexual practices that draw upon tantric techniques of body control but do not involve any of tantra's cultural or iconographic symbolism; intended to promote birth control, equality for women, and marital pleasure and fidelity.
    • Karezza seems to me to be the sex-blending of the moral natures, it seems to call out and arouse to an ecstasy of delight and power the spiritual and poetic nature of both man and woman. It gives strength as if it were the key to unlock powers.1903, Alice Bunker Stockham, Karezza: Ethics of Marriage
    • For those who could not manage this, another curious choice was available: “karezza” or intercourse without male orgasm (Stockham, 1896). Karezza was promoted as a technique with several advantages: men could demonstrate sexual […]2012, Martha Kirkpatrick, Women’s Sexual Development: Explorations of Inner Space, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 23

Noun (2) capitalized: Karezza

Karezza (uncountable)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of karezza.

Forms of karezza

alternative formKarezza
alternative formKaretza

Origin of karezza

Coined by Alice Bunker Stockham from Italian carezza (“caress”). Doublet of caress.

Questions about karezza

What does karezza mean?
Karezza means non-religious spiritual sexual practices that draw upon tantric techniques of body control but do not involve any of tantra's cultural or iconographic symbolism; intended to promote birth control, equality for women, and marital pleasure and fidelity.
What part of speech is karezza?
Karezza is a noun.
How do you pronounce karezza?
Karezza is pronounced /kɑˈɹɛtsə/.

Words near karezza in the dictionary

  1. karewa
  2. karewas
  3. karez
  4. karezes
  5. Karezin
  6. karezza
  7. Karg
  8. Kargbo
  9. Kargbos
  10. Karger
  11. Kargers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: karezza (page history and authors); Karezza (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.

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