abysm

plural abysms · alternative abime · alternative abyme

1. archaicpoeticHell; the infernal pit; the great deep; the primal chaos.First known use between 1150 and 1350

   1 more example

   Orkney is an archipelago of 70 or so islands lying off the northeast tip of Scotland. “Everywhere in Orkney there is the sense of age, the dark backward and abysm,” the late Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown wrote. “The islands have been inhabited for a very long time, from before the day of the plough.”

   2025, Peter Ross, “Discover the Astounding Secrets of Scotland’s Stone Age Settlements. In the Orkney Islands, archaeologists close the chapter on a legendary excavation, capping two decades of remarkable Neolithic discoveries”, in Smithsonian, volume 55, number 7: January/February

2. literaryAn abyss; a gulf, a chasm, a very deep hole.First known use late 15th century

   The abysm of hell.

   1623, Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, III, xiii

   2 more examples

   Dr. Prunesquallor had circled around Steerpike with his head drawn back so that his cervical vertebrae rested against the near wall of his high collar, and a plumbless abysm yawned between his Adam’s apple and his pearl stud.

   1946, Mervyn Peake, “The Grotto”, in Titus Groan, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode

   [T]he Shakespearean sonnet doesn't lend itself to a sequential narrative, because the rhymed couplet, without its paired feet trembling at that abysm of time, has to settle instead for the sound of sighing resolution, at regular intervals, over and over, before taking a deep breath and returning usually, for better or worse, to the same subject.

   2015 January 30, Glyn Maxwell, “‘Ideas of Order,’ by Neil L. Rudenstine [book review; print version: Eternal lines: A guide to Shakespeare's sonnets, International New York Times, 2 February 2015, p. 7]”, in The New York Times