Meanings
plural crases
- countableobsoleteuncountableOne's constitution; the balance of humours in a person's body.
Some men have peculiar symptoms, according to their temperament and crasis, which they had from the stars and those celestial influences […]
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition 1, section 3, member 1, subsection 21 more example
This is all that ever stagger'd my faith in regard to Yorick’s extraction, who, by what I can remember of him, and by all the accounts I could ever get of him, seem'd not to have had one single drop of Danish blood in his whole crasis
1759, Laurence Sterne, The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Penguin, published 2003, page 24 - countableuncountableA mixture or combination.
- countableuncountablehuman sciencesThe contraction of a vowel or diphthong at the end of a word with a vowel or diphthong at the start of the following word.
When in a crasis, a lene consonant […] is combined with an aspirated vowel, the lene is always changed (except in the Ionic dialect) into the corresponding aspirate […]
1861, William Edward Jelf, Accidence
Origin
- Ancient Greekκρᾶσις“mixture”
- Englishcrasis
From Ancient Greek κρᾶσις (krâsis, “mixture”).
More words from Ancient Greek
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Ancient Greek κρᾶσις
- κρᾶσις (krâsis)contraction of a vowel at the end of a word with the start of the next word
Catalan crasi
- crasicontraction of a vowel at the end of a word with the start of the next word
Danish krasis
- krasiscontraction of a vowel at the end of a word with the start of the next word
Finnish krasis
- krasiscontraction of a vowel at the end of a word with the start of the next word
French crase
- crasecontraction of a vowel at the end of a word with the start of the next word
German Krasis
- Krasiscontraction of a vowel at the end of a word with the start of the next word
Greek κράση
- κράση (krási)contraction of a vowel at the end of a word with the start of the next word
Italian crasi
- crasicontraction of a vowel at the end of a word with the start of the next word
Portuguese crase
- crasecontraction of a vowel at the end of a word with the start of the next word
Russian кра́зис
- кра́зис (krázis)contraction of a vowel at the end of a word with the start of the next word
Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with crasis
All rhymes →Cite this entry
crasis. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crasis
“crasis.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crasis. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “crasis,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crasis.
Source: crasis on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.