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''abyss'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''abyss'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260125123911-00-⌔

abyss - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

abyss (plural abysses)

  • Hell; the bottomless pit; primeval chaos; a confined subterranean ocean. [First attested around 1350 to 1470.]1
    • ✤ ‘You cannot enter here,’ said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. ‘Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!’2
  • (frequently figurative) A bottomless or unfathomed depth, gulf, or chasm; hence, any deep, immeasurable; any void space. [First attested in the late 16 century.]1
    • ✤ Below is the deep abyss of the Lauterbrunnen valley, and at its head a stately semi-circle of mountains, with the pyramidal Lauterbrunnen Breithorn as the centre-piece.3
  • Anything infinite, immeasurable, or profound. [First attested in the late 16 century.]1
  • Moral depravity; vast intellectual or moral depth.
    • ✤ They fell into the abyss of drug addiction.
  • (with article) An impending catastrophic happening.
  • (heraldry) The center of an escutcheon; fess point.
  • (oceanography) The abyssal zone.
  • (figurative) A difference, especially a large difference, between groups.
    • ✤ Synonym: gulf

Etymology

From Middle English abissus, from Late Latin abyssus (“a bottomless gulf”), from Ancient Greek ἄβυσσος (ábussos, “bottomless”), from ἀ- (a-, “not”) + βυσσός (bussós, “deep place”),45 from βυθός (buthós, “deep place”).6 Displaced native Old English neowolnes.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /əˈbɪs/
  • (US) IPA: /əˈbɪs/, /æˈbɪs/, enPR: ə-bĭs’
  • Rhymes: -ɪs
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Hyphenation: a‧byss

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief, William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “abyss”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 11. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. 1955, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King ‎, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 190: ↩

  3. 1960 December, Voyageur, “The Mountain Railways of the Bernese Oberland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 752: ↩

  4. Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief, William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “abyss”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 11. ↩

  5. William Morris, editor (1969 (1971 printing)), “abyss”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, New York, N.Y.: American Heritage Publishing Co., →OCLC, page 6. ↩

  6. Philip Babcock Gove (editor), Webster’s Third International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (G. & C. Merriam Co., 1976 [1909], →ISBN), page 9 ↩

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Secondary

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