crevasse means A crack or fissure in a glacier or snowfield; a chasm. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 84 out of 100.
crevasse is pronounced /kɹəˈvæs/.
Why “crevasse” is a great word
CREVASSE — [Noun] A deep, often treacherous fissure or crack, particularly in the ice of a glacier or within the earth's crust, such as along a river bank. From French crevasse, from Old French crevace, from crever (to burst, break), from Latin crepāre (to crack, creak). Unlike a "crevice" (which implies a narrow, static crack in stone) or a "chasm" (which evokes a vast, terrestrial gulf), a crevasse is a specific, yawning void born of tension and movement within a frozen river. It is the glacial landscape's hidden grammar: a jagged, azure-lined mouth swallowing light and sound; the sudden, breath-catching absence in a field of seamless white; the profound and patient silence that dwells between shearing plates of ice. It is not merely a hole, but an articulation of strain.
Etymology
From French crevasse. Doublet of crevice.
noun
- A crack or fissure in a glacier or snowfield; a chasm.
- A breach in a canal or river bank.
- Any cleft or fissure.“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.”
- A discontinuity or “gap” between the accounted variables and an observed outcome.“[…] 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.”
verb
- To form crevasses.
- To fissure with crevasses.