different between crevasse vs canyon

English

Etymology

From French crevasse. Doublet of crevice.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -æs
• IPA^(key): /k???væs/

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

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): /k??.vas/
• Rhymes: -as

Etymology 1

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 (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• crevassa (dated)

Noun

crevasse f (plural crevasses)

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

English

Alternative forms

• cañon

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish cañón. Doublet of cannon.

Pronunciation

• enPR: k?n?-y?n, IPA^(key): /?kænj?n/
• Rhymes: -ænj?n
• Hyphenation: can?yon

Noun

canyon (plural canyons)

1. A valley, especially a long, narrow, steep valley, cut in rock by a river.
   • Snow filled her mouth. She caromed off things she never saw, tumbling through a cluttered canyon like a steel marble falling through pins in a pachinko machine.

Synonyms

• gorge, dale, dalles, gulch, ravine, vale, valley
• See also Thesaurus:valley

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• ancony

French

Alternative forms

• cañon

Etymology

From Spanish cañón.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ka.??n/

Noun

canyon m (plural canyons)

1. canyon