crevasse

See also: crevice and crévasse

English

Etymology

From French crevasse. Doublet of crevice.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -æs
• IPA^(key): /kɹəˈvæs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

crevasse (plural crevasses)

1. A crack or fissure in a glacier or snowfield; a chasm.
2. (US) A breach in a canal or river bank.
3. (by extension) Any cleft or fissure.
   • 2010, Scott R. Riley, A Lost Hero Found, page 111:

     I moved my left hand to the small of her back, just above her belt-line and stroked the peach fuzz in her crevasse with my fingers.

4. (figuratively) A discontinuity or “gap” between the accounted variables and an observed outcome.
   • 1954: Gilbert Ryle, Dilemmas: The Tarner Lectures, 1953, dilemma vii: Perception, page 105 (The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press)

     […] he laments that he can find no physiological phenomenon answering to his subject’s winning a race, or losing it. Between his terminal output of energy and his victory or defeat there is a mysterious crevasse. Physiology is baffled.

Translations

a crack or fissure in a glacier or snow field

• Aragonese: crepaza, crebaza
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Esperanto: glaĉerfendo
• Finnish: railo (fi), halkeama (fi)
• French: crevasse (fr) f
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Gletscherspalte (de) f
• Icelandic: please add this translation if you can
• Indonesian: jurang es
• Italian: crepaccio (it)
• Japanese: please add this translation if you can
• Korean: please add this translation if you can
• Macedonian: кланец m (klanec)
• Maori: pokorua
• Norwegian: bre (no) m, isbre m
• Portuguese: crevasse f
• Romanian: crevasă (ro) f, crăpătură (ro) f
• Russian: тре́щина (ru) f (tréščina)
• Swedish: isspricka c

an unexplained gap between variables and outcomes

Verb

crevasse (third-person singular simple present crevasses, present participle crevassing, simple past and past participle crevassed)

1. (intransitive) To form crevasses.
2. (transitive) To fissure with crevasses.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kʁə.vas/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -as

Etymology 1

From Old French crevace, crever +‎ -asse.

Noun

crevasse f (plural crevasses)

1. crevasse

Etymology 2

Inflected forms

Verb

crevasse

1. first-person singular imperfect subjunctive of crever

Further reading

• “crevasse”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• crevassa (dated)

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /kɾeˈva.si/

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /kɾeˈva.si/
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /kɾeˈva.se/

 

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /kɾɨˈva.sɨ/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /kɾɨˈva.sɨ/
  • (Northern Portugal) IPA^(key): /kɾɨˈba.sɨ/ [kɾɨˈβa.sɨ]

• Hyphenation: cre‧vas‧se

Noun

crevasse f (plural crevasses)

1. (glaciology) crevasse (a crack or fissure in a glacier or snow field)