abysm


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a·bysm

 (ə-bĭz′əm)
n.
An abyss.

[Middle English abime, from Old French abisme, from Vulgar Latin *abissimus, alteration of Late Latin abyssus; see abyss.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

abysm

(əˈbɪzəm)
n
an archaic word for abyss
[C13: via Old French from Medieval Latin abysmus abyss]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

a•bysm

(əˈbɪz əm)

n.
an abyss.
[1250–1300; < Middle French abisme]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.abysm - a bottomless gulf or pitabysm - a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively)
chasm - a deep opening in the earth's surface
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

abysm

noun
Something of immeasurable and vast extent:
abyss, chasm, deep, depth (often used in plural), gulf.
The American Heritage® Roget's Thesaurus. Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Translations
References in classic literature ?
And all my austere nights of midnight oil, all the books I had read, all the wisdom I had gathered, went glimmering before the ape and tiger in me that crawled up from the abysm of my heredity, atavistic, competitive and brutal, lustful with strength and desire to outswine the swine.
One end awaits for all that mortal be; Pride and despair shall find a common grave: The Yang-tse-kiang renders wave and wave To mingle with the abysms of the sea.
Once returned from the abysms of the utter North to that little house upon the outskirts of Meudon, it was not the philosopher, the daring observer, the man of iron energy that imposed himself on his family, but a fat and even plaintive jester, a farceur incarnate and kindly, the co-equal of his children, and, it must be written, not seldom the comic despair of Madame Lavalle, who, as she writes five years after the marriage, to her venerable mother, found "in this unequalled intellect whose name I bear the abandon of a large and very untidy boy." Here is her letter:
In the thresholds of the deformation abysm of the other is the
In 1998 Javier Marias recreates Prospero's description of remembrance--"the dark backward abysm of time" (1.2.62)--in the tile of his Negra espalda del tiempo.
Ancient representations of Orestes drew upon earlier portraits and myths, now largely vanished in the dark backward and abysm of time.
Peace is very temporary; so brief that it only allows breathing a little before returning to the abysm.
With Sci-Fi films back in the public eye at warp speed like "Star Wars", "Star Trek" and new franchises like "The Hunger Games" it brings with it the new spawn of Sci-Fi film makers marking their film debuts like "Abysm" Written and Directed by Serge Levin, a die hard Sci-Fi fan who needed to tell his story and with enough begging and borrowing, he finally was able to make that dream come true and turn a new chapter in his own life.
Tribble, "'The Dark Backward and Abysm of Time': The Tempest and Memory," College Literature 33, no.1 (2006): 151-68, quotation on 159.
The "juvenile" crisis (Mal), based mainly on the contribution of abysm psychology, especially the so-called "analytical psychotherapy."
From the viewpoint of the novel's composition, they represent the manner of placing the text in an abysm; as a matter of fact, in the whole creation of Proust, they behave as microtexts, the author considering that it is better to dream life than to live it (Egri, 1969:47).