crevasse
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also crevice
Contents |
[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
From French crevasse.
[edit] Pronunciation
[edit] Noun
crevasse (plural crevasses)
- (literally) A crack or fissure in a glacier or snow field; a chasm.
- (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)
- [… H]e 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.
- 1954: Gilbert Ryle, Dilemmas: The Tarner Lectures, 1953, dilemma vii: Perception, page 105 (The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press)
[edit] Translations
a crack or fissure in a glacier or snow field
an unexplained gap between variables and outcomes
[edit] French
[edit] Pronunciation
[edit] Etymology 1
Old French crevace, crever + -asse
[edit] Noun
crevasse f. (plural crevasses)
[edit] Etymology 2
Inflected forms
[edit] Verb
crevasse
- first-person singular imperfect subjunctive form of crever.