An abyss is a hole so deep it seems to have no bottom. Stare into the abyss, the abyss below, an abyss of despair.
The Greek means bottomless, and the word is used far more of despair and of moral danger than of any real hole. Nietzsche's line about the abyss staring back is quoted constantly. In oceanography the abyssal zone is real and lies below four thousand metres.
1nounabyssA hole so deep it seems to have no bottom.
“The climbers stood at the edge of the cliff and stared down into the abyss.”
abyss is a depth.
Greek abyssos means bottomless, from a-, without, plus byssos, a depth.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰewbʰ-
Latin
abyssus
Middle English
abissus
English, today
abyss
Built from
From Middle English abissus, from Latin abyssus. From Middle English abissus, from Latin abyssus (“a bottomless gulf”), from Ancient Greek ἄβυσσος (“bottomless”), from βυθός (“deep place”). Displaced native neowolnes.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA