[a. L. chaos, a. Gr. χάος ‘any vast gulf or chasm, the nether abyss, empty space, the first state of the universe,’ f. vb.-stem χα- to yawn, gape.]
† 1. A gaping void, yawning gulf, chasm or abyss: (chiefly from the Vulgate rendering of Luke xvi. 26). Obs. (In Greek spec. ‘the nether abyss, infinite darkness,’ a use also often glanced at by English writers.)
c. 1440. Hylton, Scala Perf. (W. de W., 1494), I. lxxvii. There is a grete chaos [1533 cause] that is to sayen a thycke derkenes betwene vs & the that we mowe not come to the ne thou tyll vs.
1582. N. T. (Rhem.), Luke xvi. 26. Betweene us and you there is fixed a great chaos [Vulg. chaos, Gr. χάσμα, Wycl. derke place, Tind. greate space, Geneva great gulfe].
1583. Fulke, Defence, vii. 205. There is a great Chaos, whiche signifieth an infinite distance betwene Abraham and the riche glutton.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 975 (Trench). What other thing soever besides commeth within the chaos of this monsters mouth … downe it goes.
1667. Milton, P. L., VI. 55. The Gulf of Tartarus, which ready opens wide His fiery Chaos to receave thir fall.
2. The ‘formless void’ of primordial matter, the ‘great deep’ or ‘abyss’ out of which the cosmos or order of the universe was evolved.
1531. Elyot, Gov. (1875), 3. Take awaie Ordre frome all thinges, what shulde than remaine? Certes nothing finally, except some man wold imagine eftesoones, Chaos, whiche of some is expounded, a confuse mixture.
1559. Primer, in Priv. Prayers (1851), 101. That old confusion, which we call chaos, wherein without order, without fashion, confusedly lay the discordant seeds of things.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., I. vi. § 2. The order and disposition of that Chaos or Masse, was the worke of sixe days.
1649. Selden, Laws Eng., II. i. (1739), 8. The whole Body like a Chaos capable of any form that the next daring spirit shall brood upon it.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 10. In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth Rose out of Chaos.
1730. Thomson, Autumn, 731. As when of old … Light uncollected thro’ the chaos urg’d Its infant way.
1831. Brewster, Newton (1855), II. xvi. 99. The formation of the earth, and the other planets, out of a general chaos.
b. personified. (By some of the Greeks Chaos was made the most ancient of the gods.)
1651. Hobbes, Leviath. (1839), 99. The unformed matter of the world, was a god, by the name of Chaos.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 895. Where eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal Anarchie.
1728. Pope, Dunc., I. 10. Dulness o’er all possess’d her antient right, Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night.
1850. Carlyle, Latter-d. Pamph., vii. (1872), 243. If Chaos himself sat umpire, what better could he do?
3. transf. and fig. a. A state resembling that of primitive chaos; utter confusion and disorder.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., I. iii. 125. This Chaos, when Degree is suffocate.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., III. (1843), 74/1. The whole mass of their designs, as well what remained in Chaos as what was Formed.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., III. xxxvi. 232. Reduce all Order … to the first Chaos of Violence, and Civill warre.
1819. Arnold, Life & Corr. (1844), I. ii. 59. I stand at times quite bewildered, in a chaos where I can see no light either before or behind.
1873. Burton, Hist. Scot., VI. lxv. 27. In Ireland all is confusion and chaos.
b. ‘Anything where the parts are undistinguished’ (J.); a confused mass or mixture, a conglomeration of parts or elements without order or connection.
1579. Gosson, Sch. Abuse (Arb.), 53. They make their volumes no better than … a huge Chaos of foule disorder.
a. 1631. Donne, Poems (1650), 36. Oft did we grow To be two Chaosses.
1709. Pope, Ess. Crit., 292. One glaring Chaos and wild heap of wit.
1781. J. Moore, View Soc. It. (1790), I. xi. 118. Arranging the vast Chaos of laws and regulations.
1878. Black, Green Past., xxxv. 283. The vessel went plunging on through the wild chaos of green and grey mists.
† 4. transf. An undigested or amorphous mass or lump. Obs. (Cf. the ‘rudis indigestaque moles’ of Ovid, applied to Chaos in sense 2.)
[1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., I. 6 (1632), 1 (R.). One face had Nature, which they Chaos nam’d: An vndigested lump.]
1562. Eden, Lett., in 1st Eng. Bks. Amer. (Arb.), Introd. 44/1. I stilled of the water from the masse or Chaos lefte of them bothe.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., III. ii. 167. To disproportion me in euery part, Like to a Chaos, or an vn-lick’d Beare-whelpe.
† 5. ? Element; environment; space. (Among Greek senses were ‘space, the expanse of air.’)
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. ii. I. ii. (1676), 27/1. Paracelsus stiffely maintaines … that they [devils] have every one their severall Chaos…. The water (as Paracelsus thinks) is their [Naiads’] Chaos, wherein they live. Ibid., II. ii. III. 155/2. Creatures, whose Chaos is the earth.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Chaos, in the phrase of Paracelsus, imports the air. It has also some other significations amongst the alchemists.
6. attrib. and Comb., as chaos-flood, -state; chaos-founded adj., chaos-like adj. and adv.
1611. Guillim, Heraldrie, To Rdr. By dissoluing of this chaos-like or confused lump.
1684. T. Burnet, Th. Earth, II. 109. Nature relapses hastily into that chaos-state.
1821. Byron, Heav. & Earth, I. iii. 815. Come, Anah! quit this chaos-founded prison.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res. (1858), 164. Not a few … now swim weltering in the Chaos-flood.
