| Library / English Dictionary |
ABYSS
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively)
Synonyms:
abysm; abyss
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)
Hypernyms ("abyss" is a kind of...):
chasm (a deep opening in the earth's surface)
Derivation:
abyssal (resembling an abyss in depth; so deep as to be unmeasurable)
Context examples:
“What a picture of intellectual poverty! However, when you sink into this abyss again, you will have more to say. You will be able to talk of Bath, and of all that you did here.”
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
I am not a fanciful person, but I give you my word that I seemed to hear Moriarty’s voice screaming at me out of the abyss.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
At the best you are a trifle puzzled and amused that this raw boy, crawling up out of the mire of the abyss, should pass judgment upon your class and call it vulgar.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
When we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the rolling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore with towers and buildings.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
But a horrible abyss lay between it and the plateau.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
We stood near the edge peering down at the gleam of the breaking water far below us against the black rocks, and listening to the half-human shout which came booming up with the spray out of the abyss.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“Holmes!” I cried. “Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful abyss?”
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
