Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Abysm |
AbysmNoun1. A bottomless gulf or pit. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "abysm" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1607. (references) |
Etymology: Abysm \A*bysm"\, noun. [Old French expression abisme; French abime, Late Latin expression abyssimus, superl. of Latin abyssus. See Abyss.]. (Websters 1913) |
Synonym: AbysmSynonym: abyss (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Interval | Gorge, defile, ravine, canon, crevasse, abyss, abysm; gulf; inlet, frith, strait, gully; pass; furrow; abra; barranca, barranco; clove, gulch, notch; yawning gulf; hiatus maxime, hiatus valde deflendus; parenthesis; (interjacence); void c. (absence); incompleteness. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Abysm |
| Specialty definitions using "abysm": Aphorism. (references) |
| Title | Author | Quote |
The Tempest | William Shakespeare | Prospero: What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | APHORISM, n. Predigested wisdom. The flabby wine-skin of his brain Yields to some pathologic strain, And voids from its unstored abysm The driblet of an aphorism. "The Mad Philosopher," 1697 |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Abysm" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Abysm" is used about 5 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 5 | 157,705 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
abysm | 10 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "abysm"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | hon (abyss, gully, precipice). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | бездна (abyss, chasm, depths, gap, gulf, precipice, the deep). (various references) | |
Czech | propast (abyss, chasm, divide, gulf, yawn). (various references) | |
French | précipice (abyss). (various references) | |
German | Abgrund (abyss, chasm, fovea, gulf, precipice, sheer). (various references) | |
Hungarian | föld mélye, õskáosz. (various references) | |
Italian | abisso (abyss, chasm, deep, depth, fovea, gulf, pit, precipice). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | abysmay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | abismo (abyss, chasm, deep, depths, gulf, pit, precipice, yawn), garganta (ball spunt, canyon, Col, defile, dingle, fauces, gap, gate, glabrous, gorge, groove, gulch, gullet, neck, pass, ravine, saddle, slot, swallow, throat, throttle, upfold, whistle). (various references) | |
Romanian | abis (abyss, chasm, gulf, hell, precipice, ravine, the bottomless pit), prãpastie (abyss, chaos, chasm, depth, disaster, gulf, hollow, precipice, ravine, scar, steep). (various references) | |
Russian | бездна (abyss, chasm, deep, gulf, precipice). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | prvobitni haos (abyss). (various references) | |
Spanish | abismo (abyss, chasm, cleft, coulee, couloir, crevice, deepness, gulf, hell, pit, precipice, Slough, steep), garganta (affluent reach, ball spunt, Coomb, gorge, groove, gulch, gullet, neck, ravine, throat). (various references) | |
Turkish | uçurum (abyss, bluff, chasm, cliff, crag, gap, gulf, precipice, scarp, steep), sonsuz derinlik, boşluk (abyss, antrum, backlash, blank, blankness, cavity, chamber, chasm, clear, clearance, daylight, desideratum, emptiness, gap, gulf, hiatus, hole, hollow, hollowness, idleness, inanition, Lacuna, nothingness, nullity, separation, sinus, slack, slackness, space, vacancy, vacuity, vacuum, void, voidness). (various references) | |
Ukranian | безодня (abyss, chasm, deep, depth, precipice, profundity, yawn), пучина (abyss, gulf, profound), прірва (abyss, barathrum, gulf). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "abysm": abysmal, abysmally, abysms. (additional references) | |
| |
"Abysm" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: abbys, abim, absym, abyes, abyis, abys, abyse, abysma, ayam, Zbys. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-b-m-s-y" | |
-1 letter: abys, bams, bays, mays, yams. | |
-2 letters: abs, aby, ays, bam, bas, bay, bys, mas, may, sab, say, yam. | |
-3 letters: ab, am, as, ay, ba, by, ma, my, ya. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-b-m-s-y" | |
+1 letter: abysms, embays, maybes. | |
+2 letters: abysmal, bayamos, bynames, cymbals, embassy, maybush, tymbals. | |
+3 letters: amboynas, assembly, boyarism, eyebeams, goombays, myoblast, sunbeamy. | |
+4 letters: abysmally, assumably, beamishly, blasphemy, boyarisms, carbamyls, chambrays, cymbalers, cymbalist, cymbaloms, estimably, maccaboys, maccoboys, mangabeys, maybushes, mealybugs, megabytes, miserably, moneybags, myoblasts, semblably, subfamily. | |
+5 letters: amblyopias, ambrotypes, amebocytes, bigamously, bipyramids, cymbalists, dithyrambs, embayments, hybridomas, impassably, impassibly, jambalayas, measurably, metastably, molybdates, myeloblast, myrobalans, presumably, reassembly, sybaritism, symbolical. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)41 62 79 73 6D |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).- -... -.--. ... -- |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000001 01100010 01111001 01110011 01101101 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)A b y s m |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0041 0062 0079 0073 006D |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)3568918579 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Quotations: Fiction | 5. Quotations: Non-fiction 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Derivations 10. Anagrams 11. Orthography 12. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.