crevasse

UK/kɹəˈvæs/US/kɹəˈvæs/

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,375 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: crevasses

A crevasse is a deep split in a glacier. Fall into a crevasse, a hidden crevasse, roped against crevasses.

The danger is that fresh snow bridges them invisibly, which is why parties rope together on a glacier at all. It is the same French word as crevice, which in English means a small crack instead.

Definitions of crevasse

1nouncrevasseA deep split in a glacier.C1
“The climber fell into a crevasse and had to be pulled out with ropes.”

crevasse is a crack.

Where it comes from

French crevasse comes from crever, to split; crevice is a doublet.

French
crevasse
English, today
crevasse

From French crevasse. a doublet of crevice.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Camping & Outdoors

Practise this word

crevasse in the wild

A crevasse is a deep crack that forms in a glacier or ice sheet.
Crevasse
By diverting river water and sediment, the crevasse saved a greater portion of land surrounding the area from succumbing to total flooding and land erosion.
Bonnet Carré Crevasse
Therefore, the crevasse served as a buffer for wetland erosion.
Bonnet Carré Crevasse
A breach that forms a crevasse splay deposits sediment in a pattern similar to that of an alluvial fan deposit.
Crevasse splay
In some cases crevasse splays can cause a river to abandon its old river channel, a process known as avulsion.
Crevasse splay

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

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