in the ecclesiastical history of the Jews, a religious sect among that people, who adhere closely to the text and letter of the scriptures, rejecting the rabbinical interpretations, and the cabala. The Caraites pass for the most learned of the Jewish doctors; they are chiefly to be met with in Poland, Muscovy, and the east: they are but few in comparison of the bulk of the Jews, who are of the party of the rabbins: the latter have so great an aversion for the Caraites, that they will have no alliance, nor even conversation with them: they treat them as bastards; and if a carait would turn rabbinit, the other Jews would not receive him.