caries

See also: cariés, caríes, cáries, and cariës

English

Etymology 1

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *ḱes-der.?

Proto-Italic *kazēō

Latin careō

Proto-Italic *-jēs

Latin -iēs

Latin cariēsbor.

English caries

Borrowed from Latin cariēs.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɛə.ɹiːz/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɛ.ɹiz/
• Rhymes: -ɛəɹiz
• Homophones: carries, karris (Mary–marry–merry merger, happy-tensing)
• Hyphenation: car‧ies

Noun

caries (usually uncountable, plural caries)

1. The progressive destruction of bone or tooth by decay.
   1. (usually) Ellipsis of dental caries (“tooth decay”).

      Near-synonym: cavity

Derived terms

• cariology
• carious
• dental caries

Translations

progressive destruction of bone or tooth by decay

• Arabic: تَسَوُّس (tasawwus)
• Armenian: ոսկրափտություն (oskrapʻtutʻyun), կարիես (hy) (karies)
• Bulgarian: ка́риес m (káries)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 齲齒 / 龋齿 (zh) (qǔchǐ), 蛀牙 (zh) (zhùyá), 蟲牙 / 虫牙 (zh) (chóngyá)

• Czech: kaz (cs) m, zubní kaz m
• Danish: karies c, caries c
• Dutch: cariës (nl) f, tandbederf (nl) n, (informal) gaatjes (nl) pl
• Estonian: kaaries
• Finnish: karies (fi), hammasmätä (fi)
• French: carie (fr) f
• Galician: carie (gl) f
• German: Karies (de) f
• Greek: τερηδόνα (el) f (teridóna)
• Hebrew: עַשֶּׁשֶׁת (he) f ('ashéshet)
• Hungarian: fogszuvasodás (hu)
• Japanese: 齲蝕 (ja) (うしょく, ushoku), う蝕 (うしょく, ushoku), カリエス (ja) (kariesu), 虫歯 (ja) (むしば, mushiba)
• Korean: 충치(蟲齒) (chungchi), 카리에스 (karieseu)
• Lao: please add this translation if you can
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: karies (no) m

  Nynorsk: karies m

• Polish: próchnica (pl) f
• Portuguese: cárie (pt) f
• Russian: ка́риес (ru) m (kárijes), ка́риес зубо́в m (kárijes zubóv)
• Spanish: caries (es) f
• Swahili: karisi
• Swedish: karies (sv) c
• Tagalog: karyes
• Thai: ฟันผุ
• Ukrainian: ка́рієс (uk) m (kárijes), каріо́з m (karióz)

Etymology 2

Verb

caries

1. third-person singular simple present indicative of cary

References

• “caries”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• Serica, ericas

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ka.ʁi/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

Noun

caries f

1. plural of carie

Verb

caries

1. second-person singular present indicative/subjunctive of carier

Anagrams

• aciers
• casier
• craies
• créais
• écrias
• sciera

Latin

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *ḱes-der.?

Proto-Italic *kazēō

Latin careō

Proto-Italic *-jēs

Latin -iēs

Latin cariēs

From careō (“to lack”) + -iēs.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈka.ri.eːs]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈkaː.ri.es]

Noun

cariēs f (genitive cariēī); fifth declension

1. decay, rot, rottenness, corruption

Declension

Fifth-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	cariēs	cariēs
genitive	cariēī	cariērum
dative	cariēī	cariēbus
accusative	cariem	cariēs
ablative	cariē	cariēbus
vocative	cariēs	cariēs

Derived terms

• cariōsus

Descendants

• Albanian: qere
• Catalan: quera, → càries
• → English: caries
• French: carie
• Italian: carie
• Portuguese: cárie
• Romanian: car, carie
• Sicilian: cari
• Spanish: caries, quera

See also

• carius

References

• “caries”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “caries”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “caries”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 93

Spanish

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *ḱes-der.?

Proto-Italic *kazēō

Latin careō

Proto-Italic *-jēs

Latin -iēs

Latin cariesbor.

Spanish caries

Borrowed from Latin caries.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkaɾjes/ [ˈka.ɾjes]
• Rhymes: -aɾjes
• Syllabification: ca‧ries

Noun

caries f (plural caries)

1. (dentistry) caries, cavity

Derived terms

• anticaries

Further reading

• “caries”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025