KER

also spelled Cer, in ancient Greek religion, a destructive spirit. Popular belief attributed death and illness to the action of impersonal powers, often spoken of in the plural (Keres). The word was also used of an individual's doom, with a meaning resembling the notion of destiny. In the Attic festival of the Anthesteria, when the spirits of the dead were expelled from the house, they were addressed as Keres; thus some scholars suppose that this was the original meaning of the word.