Meanings
plural karasses
- A network or group of people who are somehow affiliated or linked spiritually.
We Bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's Will without ever discovering what they are doing. Such a team is called a karass by Bokonon […]
1963, Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle3 more examples
I do want to go to Arlinghurst, even though it's moronic and awful and there's no privacy at all, because I have started to build my karass there. I have the book club,I have the library—both libraries.
2012, Jo Walton, Among Others, →ISBNLike all complex systems of this type, each “karass” has its own history (see Chapter 1, 1.2). This history is a selected and saved internal ethos of organization based on both social relations and common activity experience.
2013, Felix Lebed, Michael Bar-Eli, Complexity and Control in Team Sports: Dialectics in Contesting Human Systems, Routledge, →ISBN, page 128I think you may be the only good person in the whole karass. Or maybe you and Anita. I'm still not sure about her.” “Karass?” “Oh, it's Andy's thing. Well, Kurt Vonnegut's thing. It's a group of people who are connected, but, like, spiritually.
2015, Tommy Wallach, We All Looked Up, →ISBN, page 276
Origin
Coined by American writer Kurt Vonnegut in 1963, in the novel Cat's Cradle.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
karass. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/karass
“karass.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/karass. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “karass,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/karass.
Source: karass on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.