crevasse

[kruh-vas]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR crevasse ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a fissure, or deep cleft, in glacial ice, the earth's surface, etc.

a breach in an embankment or levee.

verb (used with object), cre·vassed, cre·vas·sing.

to fissure with crevasses.

Origin of crevasse

1805–15, Americanism; < French; see crevice

Related formsun·cre·vassed, adjective

Can be confusedcrevice crevasse

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for crevasse

abyss, fissure, chasm, cleft, hole, gap

Examples from the Web for crevasse

Contemporary Examples of crevasse

Some days, she felt as though glaciers were buckling around her and a crevasse yawned beneath her.
Breaking Mount Everest’s Glass Ceiling
Amanda Padoan, Peter Zuckerman
March 30, 2014
With the crawling, for instance, Bradey had been on top of a snow bridge that crossed a crevasse.
Breaking Mount Everest’s Glass Ceiling
Amanda Padoan, Peter Zuckerman
March 30, 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.
Six Greatest Acts of Human Endurance
Nico Hines
November 6, 2013

Historical Examples of crevasse

There was a crevasse which was called the "Enfer du Plogoff."
My Double Life
Sarah Bernhardt
Come to me on the edge of the crevasse nearest the place of most destruction!
Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930
Various
The German wishes he had dropped the Frenchman into the crevasse.
Mountain Meditations
L. Lind-af-Hageby
The crevasse through which it issues is wild and romantic in the extreme.
Byeways in Palestine
James Finn
It was a stony smile, humorless as a crevasse in a rock-face.
Highways in Hiding
George Oliver Smith

British Dictionary definitions for crevasse

crevasse

noun

a deep crack or fissure, esp in the ice of a glacier

US a break in a river embankment

verb

(tr) US to make a break or fissure in (a dyke, wall, etc)

Word Origin for crevasse

C19: from French: crevice

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for crevasse

1823, of glaciers; 1814, of riverbanks (in that case from Louisiana French), from French crevasse, from Old French crevace "crevice" (see crevice). Essentially the same word as crevice, but re-adopted in senses for which the meaning that had taken hold in crevice was felt to be too small.

crevasse in Science

crevasse

[krĭ-văs′]

A deep fissure in a glacier or other body of ice. Crevasses are usually caused by differential movement of parts of the ice over an uneven topography.

A large, deep fissure in the Earth caused by an earthquake.

A wide crack or breach in the bank of a river. Crevasses usually form during floods.♦ The sediments that spill out through the crevasse and fan out along the external margin of the river's bank form a crevasse splay deposit.