Also 4–7 abyssus, abissus. [ad. L. abyss-us, a. Gr. ἄβυσσος bottomless, sb. the deep.] The older forms in Eng. were ABIME, ABYSME from the Fr. The L. abyssus was adopted as a more learned word in 4, and in course of 6, englished as abyss. Thus the word has had five variants, abime, abysm, abysmus, abyssus, abyss; of which abyss remains as the ordinary form, and ABYSM as archaic or poetic.
1. The great deep, the primal chaos; the bowels of the earth, the supposed cavity of the lower world; the infernal pit. (See ABYSM.)
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R. (1495), XIII. xx. 449. The primordiall and fyrste matere in the begynnynge of the worlde not dystinguyd by certayn fourme is callyd Abyssus … Abyssus is depnesse of water vnseen and thero come and springe welles and ryuers.
1413. Lydgate, Pylgr. Sowle (1483), III. x. 56. This pytte is the chyef and the manoyr of helle that is clepid Abissus.
1534. Polyd. Verg., Eng. Hist., II. xii. 56 a. For the desire hereof [gold] they have dygged in the depe bottomlesse abisse of the yerth.
1649. Lovelace, Poems (1659), 155. Ye blew flam’d daughters oth’ Abysse, Bring all your Snakes, here let them hisse.
1704. Ray, Creation, I. 93. Bring up Springs & Rivers from the great Abyss.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Suppl., s.v. The existence of an Abyss, or receptacle of subterraneous waters is … defended by Dr. Woodward.
1835. Thirlwall, Greece, I. vi. 198. The abyss of Tartarus, fast secured with iron gates, and a brazen floor.
2. A bottomless gulf; any unfathomable or apparently unfathomable cavity or void space; a profound gulf, chasm, or void extending beneath.
1639. Massinger, Unnat. Combat, II. i. Were I condemned … to fill up … A bottomless abyss, or charge thro’ fire, It could not so much shake me.
1667. Milton, P. L., VII. 212. They viewed the vast immeasurable abyss Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild.
1794. Sullivan, View of Nat., I. 30. How striking the profundity of the abysses! the frightful elevation of the rocks!
1831. Scott, A. Geierst., ii. 25. I can see the part of the path lying down in the abyss.
1873. Sir J. Herschel, Pop. Lect., ii. § 4. 50. That awful abyss which separates us from the stars.
3. fig.
1619. H. Hutton, Follie’s Anat. (1842), 18. And in th’ abysse of vintners chalked score, Shipwrack good fortune.
1620. Shelton, Don Quixote, IV. xxi. 167. You have flung it into the Abissus of Silence.
1621. Bacon, in Four Cents. Eng. Lett. (1881), 43. Your majesty’s heart, which is an abyssus of goodness, as I am an abyssus of misery.
1632. Sanderson, 21 Serm., Ad. Mag. (1673), 280. There is an abyssus, a depth in thy heart which thou canst not fathom with all the line thou hast.
1686. Dryden, Hind & Panther, 66. Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light, A blaze of glory that forbids the sight.
1796. Burke, Reg. Peace, i. Wks. VIII. 80. Some of them seemed plunged in unfathomable abysses of disgrace.
1871. F. T. Palgrave, Lyr. Poems, 101. Into the dismal abysses Where outworn centuries lie.
1911. T. Common, trans. Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra, Prol. § 4. Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope over an abyss.
4. ‘Abyss is also used in heraldry, to denote the centre of an escutcheon.’ Chambers, Cycl. Suppl., 1753. (Fr. une fleur de lis en abîme, Littré.)
