Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Crevasse |
CrevasseNoun1. A deep fissure. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "crevasse" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1862. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Mining | A. A wide breach or crack in the bank of a river or canal; esp. one in a natural levee or an artificial bank of the lower Mississippi River. Etymol: American French b. A wide, deep break or fissure in the Earth after an earthquake. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A crevasse is a crack or fissure in a glacier or snow field. Falling into a hidden crevasse is a mountaineer's worst nightmare. Falling into a visible crevasse is usually the result of an error in judgement. Anyone planning on walking on glaciers should be trained in crevasse rescue.As glaciers flow down a mountain, its pace quickens when the slope steepens. When ice flows faster on steeper pitches of ice below slower moving ice above, a crescentic crevasse may form.
Glaciers move slower down the sides than in the centre because of the friction between the ice and walls of the mountain. This speed difference often creates lateral crevasses near the sides of the glacier, pointing up-valley.
Reference
Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills, 5th edition. ISBN 0-89886-309-0
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Crevasse."
| 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: Crevasse |
| Specialty definitions using "crevasse": confined flood. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Crevasse" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. French (chap, cleft, crack, crevasse, crevice, fissure, rift, split). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I stopped 250 feet from the crevasse. Numbers have meaning in the world below (The Man Who Skied Down Everest; writing credit: Kyle Onstott; Jack Kirkland) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Ice crystals growing in a small crevasse. Credit: Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth. |  | Bridging a crevasse. McMurdo Station to South Pole traverse. Credit: Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth. |
 | Cups for crevasse searching mounted in front of vehicle. Pitons for human probing for crevasses on Minnesota Camp to Byrd Station. Credit: Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth. |  | Tractor equipped with crevasse finding discs. Minnesota Camp to Byrd Station Traverse. Credit: Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth. |
 | Checking out a crevasse McMurdo Station to South Pole traverse. Credit: Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth. |  | Going down into a large crevasse for a closer look. Credit: Paths Less Taken - NOAA at the Ends of the Earth. |
 | Gymnothorax flavimarginatus - Moray eel living in crevasse in reef. Credit: The Coral Kingdom. |  | Crevasse formation in Illecillewaet Glacier, Selkirk Mountains, B.C. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |
| "Crevasse man" by L L Commentary: "Man and crevasse, Hochstetter Dome, South Island, New Zealand." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | This crevasse, a hiatus in a gulf of mud, was called technically (r)fontis |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Crevasse" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Crevasse" is used about 24 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% | 24 | 71,196 |
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 |
crevasse | 12 |
crevasse rescue | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "crevasse"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | çarje e thellë. (various references) | |
Arabic | فجوة (aperture, breach, break, cavity, chamber, chasm, crack, crevice, discontinuity, fissure, gap, hiatus, hole, lacuna, opening), صدع عميق, شق (chap, check, chink, cleavage, cleave, cleft, crack, cranny, crash, crevice, cut, excavate, fissure, flaw, fracture, hew, hole, incise, incision, jag, loophole, lump, nick, open, overture, part, rift, rip, rive, slash, slit, slot, snag, snip, spiracle, splinter, split, spring, tear, twist). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | дълбока цепнатина в ледник. (various references) | |
Chinese | 裂隙, 冰隙 . (various references) | |
Czech | trhlina (breach, chink, cleft, crack, crevice, gap, gash, Lacuna, rent, rift, rip, rupture, snag, split, tear), rozsedlina (cleft). (various references) | |
Dutch | spleet (crack, crevice), gletsjerspleet, breuk (fraction, fracture). (various references) | |
Finnish | halkeama (chink, cleft, crack, crevice, fissure, split). (various references) | |
French | crevasse (crack, crevice). (various references) | |
German | Gletscherspalte, spalte (break, chasm, chink, cleavage, cleft, col, column, crack, cranny, crevice, fissure, fudge, gap, hole, pillar, rift), kluft (chasm, cleavage, cleft, gap, garb, gear, gulf, outfit, ravine, uniform). (various references) | |
Greek | ρωγμή (chink, cleft, crack, crevice, fissure, rift). (various references) | |
Hebrew | בקע (fissure, fragment, hernia, rift, rupture, split). (various references) | |
Hungarian | gleccserszakadék. (various references) | |
Italian | crepaccio (cleft, rift). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | クレチン病 (credibility gap, cresc., crescendo, crescent, cretinism, pastel crayons). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | クレバス . (various references) | |
Manx | scoltey rio, scoltey (analysis, beanfeast; skive, blow out, burst, bursting, chop up, cleavage; heavy meal, cleave, cleft, crack, crack; feed, cracking, disunion, fission, fissure, fracture, gutting, hew, rend, scission, slit, slitting, sliver, slot, split, tuck in; gut; fault, vent, venting). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | evassecray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | fenda(em glaciar), fenda (aperture, breach, chap, chink, crack, cranny, crevice, fracture, gap, hiatus, leak, pit, rent, rift, rip, slit, split), brecha (breach, burst, gap, hack, hiatus, rent, rift). (various references) | |
Romanian | crevasã, crãpãturã (breach, break, chasm, chink, cleft, crack, cranny, crevice, eyehole, fissure, flaw, loophole, Nick, rent, rift, slit, slot, split, yawn). (various references) | |
Russian | расселина в леднике. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | pukotina u ledu. (various references) | |
Spanish | grieta (burst, chasm, chink, cleft, crack, cranny, crevice, fissure, flaw, rift, seam, shake, split), brecha (breach, gap, gash, hole, opening). (various references) | |
Swedish | glaciärspricka. (various references) | |
Turkish | yarık (breach, chap, chappy, chasm, chink, cleft, cloven, cranny, crevice, cut, fissure, gash, hiatus, incision, interstice, rent, rift, scissure, shake, slit, slot, split, tear, vent), çatlak (balmy, barmy, break, chap, chapped, chappy, chink, chip, cleft, cloven, crack, crack-brained, cracked, crackers, cracky, cranny, crevice, cuckoo, disordered, fault, fissure, flaw, fracture, fractured, hoarse, interstice, interstitial, meshuggah, nut, nutty, off one's chump, off one's rocker, pixilated, potty, queer, queer in the head, rift, rupture, rusty, screwy, shake, shaken, shaky, split, spring, touched). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | розколина (break, chink, cleft, crevice, opening, split). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | kẽ nứt (chink). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "crevasse": crevassed, crevasses. (additional references) | |
| |
"Crevasse" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: carvasser, Ceredase, cervase, cravass, crevaase, crevas, crevase, crevased, crevases, crevasis, crevass, crevise, Grevisse. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-e-e-r-s-s-v" | |
-1 letter: creases, scarves. | |
-2 letters: averse, caress, carses, carves, cavers, ceases, crases, craves, crease, erases, escars, reaves, recess, sarees, savers, scares, screes, seracs, serves, severs, verses. | |
-3 letters: acres, arses, avers, cares, carse, carve, cases, caver, caves, cease, ceres, crass, crave, cress, eases, eaves, erase, erses, escar, races, rases, raves, reave, saree, saver, saves, scare, scars. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-e-e-r-s-s-v" | |
+1 letter: caressive, crevassed, crevasses. | |
+2 letters: cervelases, cravenness, oversauces, scavengers, severances, stavesacre. | |
+3 letters: caressively, eviscerates, observances, stavesacres. | |
+4 letters: conversances, cravennesses, creativeness, disseverance, overissuance, reactiveness, transceivers, verticalness. | |
+5 letters: conservancies, conservatives, conservatizes, conversancies, disseverances, eviscerations, inobservances, lucrativeness, overissuances, perseverances, resuscitative, surveillances, veraciousness. | |
| 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. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Images: Digital Art 7. Quotations: Fiction 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Derivations 12. Anagrams | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
