abyss

Webster's Dictionary (1913)

Origin: L. abyssus a bottomless gulf, fr. Gr. … bottomless; ἀ priv. + … depth, bottom.

1. A bottomless or unfathomed depth, gulf, or chasm; hence, any deep, immeasurable, and, specifically, hell, or the bottomless pit.

Ye powers and spirits of this nethermost abyss.— John Milton

The throne is darkness, in the abyss of light.— John Dryden

2. Infinite time; a vast intellectual or moral depth.

The abysses of metaphysical theology.— Thomas Babington Macaulay

In unfathomable abysses of disgrace.— Edmund Burke

3. Heraldry The center of an escutcheon.

☞ This word, in its leading uses, is associated with the cosmological notions of the Hebrews, having reference to a supposed illimitable mass of waters from which our earth sprung, and beneath whose profound depths the wicked were punished. Encyclopædia Britannica

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54