bathyscaphe

American  

[bath-uh-skeyf, -skaf] / ˈbæθ əˌskeɪf, -ˌskæf /

Also bathyscaph

noun

Oceanography.

1. a navigable, submersible vessel for exploring the depths of the ocean, having a separate, overhead chamber filled with gasoline for buoyancy and iron or steel weights for ballast.

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bathyscaphe Scientific  

/ băth′ĭ-skăf′,-skāf′ /

1. A free-diving vessel used to explore the ocean at great depths. The original bathyscaphe, constructed in 1948, was made of a cylindrical metal float and a suspended steel ball that could hold two people. The float contained gasoline used to lift the vessel, and heavy iron material used for ballast. Design improvements allowed the second bathyscaphe in 1960 to descend to a record 10,912 m (35,791 ft) in the Marianas Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, almost to the deepest level ever sounded on Earth.

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Etymology

Origin of bathyscaphe

1947; < French, equivalent to bathy- bathy- + Greek skáphos ship; coined by Auguste Piccard

Example Sentences

A bathyscaphe is a self-propelled submersible used in deep-sea dives.

From Seattle Times • Nov. 20, 2023

The bathyscaphe had been built to withstand more than 1,000 times the pressure at sea level, but it had never been tested to its limits at these kinds of depths until now.

From BBC • Nov. 18, 2023

He too will have to descend in bathyscaphe if he is to keep even the friendliest papers interested in photos of his working life.

From The Guardian • Jul. 29, 2019

Navy's Trieste, a 6.5-foot-diameter bathyscaphe with a 50-foot tank of gasoline on top, reaches the deepest point in any ocean, the bottom of the Mariana Trench seven miles down—despite a cracked window.

From Scientific American • Jan. 5, 2015

Yet there is still not a bathyscaphe or diving bell.

From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman