ABYSS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does abyss mean? 

• ABYSS (noun)
  The noun ABYSS has 1 sense:

1. a bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively)

  Familiarity information: ABYSS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ABYSS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A bottomless gulf or pit; any unfathomable (or apparently unfathomable) cavity or chasm or void extending below (often used figuratively)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Synonyms:

abysm; abyss

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 

Never shall I forget the Duke’s appearance as he sprang up and clawed with his hands, like one who is sinking into an abyss.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He felt himself on the edge of an abyss, powerless to withstand the force that was drawing him over.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The torrent, swollen by the melting snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke from a burning house.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It dealt with man and his soul-gropings in their ultimate terms, plumbing the abysses of space for the testimony of remotest suns and rainbow spectrums.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Half conscious, but ever with the one thought beating in his mind, he goaded the horse onwards, rushing swiftly down steep ravines over huge boulders, along the edges of black abysses.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I feel as if I were walking on the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding and endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

From below, as from out an abyss of blackness, came up a gurgling sound, as of air bubbling through water.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

I placed one arm round the trunk of the tree and leaned over the abyss.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

By what instinct do you pretend to distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the eternal throne—between a guide and a seducer?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)