Etymologically
Log in

abyss

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 15 October 2026 at 06:43. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /əˈbɪs/ (UK); /əˈbɪs/, /æˈbɪs/ (US)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English abissus,[2][3] borrowed from Late Latin abyssus (“bottomless pit”),[4][2][5] from Ancient Greek ἄβυσσος (ábussos, “bottomless”),[4][2][3] from Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-, “without”) + βυσσός (bussós, “bottom (of the sea)”).[4][2][6] Greek bussós may be related to báthos “depth”,[4][5][3] though its origin is uncertain.[4] English first took the word through French as abime and abysm;[4][7] abyss is a more learned re-Latinized form.[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The great deep of the old cosmogonies: the primal chaos, the depths of the earth, the infernal pit.[7][4][3] The OED's first quotation is from 1398;[7] Etymonline dates the Latin form abyssus to the late 14th century,[4] Random House dates the word to 1350–1400,[6] and Barnhart dates the form abyss to 1534.[5]

Semantic evolution

In the Septuagint, Greek abussos translated the Hebrew word for the original chaos, and in the New Testament it was used for Hell,[4] which is why the earliest English sense is cosmological and religious.[7][4] From the 1630s the word was used of any seemingly bottomless gulf or chasm,[4][7] and figuratively of immeasurable intellectual or moral depths.[7][3][6] The OED notes five historical variants, of which abyss became the ordinary form and abysm survived as archaic or poetic.[4]

Timeline

  • 1398 – the great deep, primal chaos, the infernal pit.[7]
  • 1534 – the form abyss.[5]
  • 1619 – figurative use.[7]
  • 1639 – any bottomless or unfathomable gulf, chasm or void.[7][4]
  • c1860 – verb, to swallow up as in an abyss.[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. An immeasurably deep gulf, chasm or space.
  2. Something profound or unfathomable, such as a vast stretch of time or an intellectual or moral depth.
  3. (mythology) The primal chaos of the ancient cosmogonies, out of which the world was formed; also the underworld or hell.
  4. (heraldry) The centre of an escutcheon.

Word family

  • abyssal
  • abysmal
  • abysm

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  6. ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press