abysm
- an abyss.
Origin of abysm
Examples from the Web for abysm
Historical Examples of abysm
I've been exploring the dark backwards and abysm of the Bronx—afoot.
The Destroying AngelLouis Joseph Vance
Cf. “Tempest,” i, 2, 50: “In the dark backward and abysm of time.”
Hazlitt on English LiteratureJacob Zeitlin
His voice dropped, and he seemed to drop too, into some abysm of thought.
Balcony StoriesGrace E. King
"Four years," said Andrew looking into the dark backward and abysm of time.
The MountebankWilliam J. Locke
It is easy to see how such conditions profoundly limit the development of organic being in the abysm of the ocean.
Outlines of the Earth's HistoryNathaniel Southgate Shaler
abysm
- an archaic word for abyss
Word Origin for abysm
Word Origin and History for abysm
"bottomless gulf, greatest depths," now chiefly poetic, c.1300, from Old French abisme (Modern French abîme), from Vulgar Latin *abyssimus (source of Spanish and Portuguese abismo), which represents either a superlative of Latin abyssus or a formation on analogy of Greek-derived words in -ismus; see abyss.