Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A chasm.
  • noun In pathology, an attack of yawning; a succession of yawns.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun astronomy, geology A long, narrow, steep-sided depression on a planet (other than Earth), a moon, or another body in the solar system.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek χάσμα.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word chasma.

Examples

  • For if there can be a space void of body equal to the smallest separate particle of matter now existing in nature, it is still space without body; and makes as great a difference between space and body as if it were mega chasma, a distance as wide as any in nature.

    An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2007

  • Sixteen years ago, while hiking in this chasma system, she disappeared.

    Asimov's Science Fiction 2004

  • I washed off my boots, and stuck near the wall of the chasma for balance as I hiked.

    Asimov's Science Fiction 2004

  • Cum enim ab oraculo Midas pater accepisset, non prius conclusum iri istam voraginem, quam res eò preciosissimæ immitterentur: Anchurus existimans, nihil esse anima pretiosius, sese viuum in illud profundissimum chasma præcipitem dedit: ídque tanto animi cum feruore, vt neque parentis desiderio, neque dulcissimæ coniugis amplexu vel lachrymis, ab isto proposito se retrahi passus sit.

    A briefe commentarie of Island, by Arngrimus Ionas 2003

  • Cum enim ab oraculo Midas pater accepisset, non prius conclusum iri istam voraginem, quam res e� preciosissim� immitterentur: Anchurus existimans, nihil esse anima pretiosius, sese viuum in illud profundissimum chasma pr鎐ipitem dedit: 韉que tanto animi cum feruore, vt neque parentis desiderio, neque dulcissim� coniugis amplexu vel lachrymis, ab isto proposito se retrahi passus sit.

    The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation 2003

  • In which regard there is no difference between the murdering of an innocent man and the executing of an offender; but as they are under a moral consideration, their ends follow their deservings, in respect of conformity to the rule, and so there is chasma mega between them.

    The Death of Death in the Death of Christ 1616-1683 1967

  • [1144] In Biblical and Patristic Latin chaos had acquired the sense of chasma; cf. Roensch, Itala u.

    NPNF2-09. Hilary of Poitiers, John of Damascus 1898

  • Cum enim ab oraculo Midas pater accepisset, non prius conclusum iri istam voraginem, quam res eò preciosissimæ immitterentur: Anchurus existimans, nihil esse anima pretiosius, sese viuum in illud profundissimum chasma præcipitem dedit: ídque tanto animi cum feruore, vt neque parentis desiderio, neque dulcissimæ coniugis amplexu vel lachrymis, ab isto proposito se retrahi passus sit.

    The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 01 Richard Hakluyt 1584

  • Ya, you are true that DW minutely observed nail police, eye gajal, "rato lipistic", "chasma ko power" and what not!

    United We Blog! for a Democratic Nepal 2009

  • ‘psalterion’ (North) ‘psaltery’; ‘chasma’ (Henry More) ‘chasm’; ‘idioma’ and ‘prosodia’ (both in Daniel, prose) ‘idiom’ and ‘prosody’; ‘energia’,

    English Past and Present Richard Chenevix Trench 1846

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "1. A chasm.

    2. In pathology, an attack of yawning; a succession of yawns."

    --Century Dictionary

    February 2, 2011