Word.ws English Dictionary

Keres

Syllables: Ke·res/ˈkɪ.riːz/US/ˈkɪɹ.iz/

Keres proper noun: 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.

Proper noun (1)

Keres

  1. (Greek) 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.

Adjective

UK/ˈkɛ.ɹəs/US/ˈkɛɹ.əs/

Keres (comparative more Keres, superlative most Keres)

  1. Of or pertaining to the Keres Pueblo people or language of New Mexico.

Noun

UK/ˈkɛ.ɹəs/US/ˈkɛɹ.əs/

Keres (countable and uncountable, plural Keres or Kereses)

  1. (collective, in plural) An indigenous Pueblo people of New Mexico that speak the Keres language.
  2. (countable) An individual member of these people.
    • 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...2007, Jay Miller, Keresan Pueblos and Chaco Canyon Speculations on Language Identity, Puebloan Cultures, and Southwestern Prehistory, archived from the original on 15 Aug 2025, page 54

Proper noun (2)

UK/ˈkɛ.ɹəs/US/ˈkɛɹ.əs/

Keres (uncountable)

  1. The language or language family traditionally spoken by the Keres Pueblo people.

Forms of Keres

Adjective
comparativemore Keres
superlativemost Keres
Noun
pluralKeres
pluralKereses

Origin of Keres

From Ancient Greek Κῆρες (Kêres, literally “Death Spirits, Doom, Heart”).

Words formed from Keres

  • Keresan
  • Eastern Keres
  • Western Keres

Questions about Keres

What does Keres mean?
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.
What part of speech is Keres?
Keres can be a proper noun, an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce Keres?
Keres is pronounced /ˈkɪ.riːz/ (UK).

Words near Keres in the dictionary

  1. Keren
  2. Kerens
  3. kereru
  4. kererus
  5. kererū
  6. Keres
  7. Keresan
  8. Keresans
  9. Kereses
  10. Keresley
  11. Kerestedjian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Keres (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Keres.wav.

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