abyss
[uh-bis]
- a deep, immeasurable space, gulf, or cavity; vast chasm.
- anything profound, unfathomable, or infinite: the abyss of time.
- (in ancient cosmogony)
- the primal chaos before Creation.
- the infernal regions; hell.
- a subterranean ocean.
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Origin of abyss
1350–1400; earlier abisse, Middle English abissus < Late Latin abyssus < Greek ábyssos bottomless, equivalent to a- a-6 + byssós bottom of the sea
Abyss.
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Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for abyss
Contemporary Examples
But, Ali warns all that can change quickly if Anbar continues to crumble, “right now, we are looking into the Abyss.”
And my beloved Zimbabwe has sunk from a promising beacon into an abyss of greed and dictatorship.
But when patients open their jaws, he totters on the abyss and gets no steadying hand from God.
And when I made the Abyss, which had a giant wave scene in it, those stopped.
James Cameron on How to Find Flight MH370, Climate Change, Leonardo DiCaprio, and MoreMarlow Stern
April 12, 2014
At one point he fell down a crevasse and was left dangling in the abyss from a rope, up which he dragged his disintegrating body.
Historical Examples
Kirkwood groaned with despair of his inability to fathom the abyss of his self-contempt.
The Black BagLouis Joseph Vance
Pierre could divine that an abyss was opening, and dared not insist.
The Three Cities Trilogy, CompleteEmile Zola
But if one falls, that is no reason to throw oneself in the abyss.
A Comedy of Marriage and Other TalesGuy De Maupassant
Invoke not the unhallowed spirits of the abyss; invoke the spotless synod of the Gods.
ImogenWilliam Godwin
Between this time and that I am now speaking of was an abyss.
The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, CompleteDuc de Saint-Simon
abyss
- a very deep or unfathomable gorge or chasm
- anything that appears to be endless or immeasurably deep, such as time, despair, or shame
- hell or the infernal regions conceived of as a bottomless pit
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Word Origin
C16: via Late Latin from Greek abussos bottomless (as in the phrase abussos limnē bottomless lake), from a- 1 + bussos depth
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for abyss
n.
late 14c., earlier abime (c.1300, from a form in Old French), from Late Latin abyssus "bottomless pit," from Greek abyssos (limne) "bottomless (pool)," from a- "without" (see a- (2)) + byssos "bottom," possibly related to bathos "depth."
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper