chaos

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek χάος (kháos, “vast chasm, void”).

In Early Modern English used in the sense of the original Greek word. In the meaning primordial matter from the 16th century. Figurative usage in the sense "confusion, disorder" from the 17th century. The technical sense in mathematics and science dates to the 1960s.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkeɪ.ɒs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkeɪ.ɑs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪɒs

Noun

chaos (usually uncountable, plural chaoses)

1. (obsolete) A vast chasm or abyss.
2. The unordered state of matter in classical accounts of cosmogony
3. Any state of disorder, any confused or amorphous mixture or conglomeration.

   Disorder conveys chaos and makes one feel that no one is in charge. ― Max Roscoe, "How Your City Is Killing You With Ugliness"

   • 1977, Irwin Edman, Adam, the Baby, and the Man from Mars, page 54:

     or out of these chaoses order may be made, out of this ferment a clear wine of life. There are chaoses that have gone too far for retrieval

4. (obsolete, rare) A given medium; a space in which something exists or lives; an environment.
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970, (please specify |partition=1, 2, or 3):
     , II.ii.3:

     What is the centre of the earth? is it pure element only, as Aristotle decrees, inhabited (as Paracelsus thinks) with creatures whose chaos is the earth: or with fairies, as the woods and waters (according to him) are with nymphs, or as the air with spirits?

5. (mathematics) Behaviour of iterative non-linear systems in which arbitrarily small variations in initial conditions become magnified over time.
6. (fantasy) One of the two metaphysical forces of the world in some fantasy settings, as opposed to law.

Anagrams

• Socha, oshac

Etymology

From Ancient Greek χάος (kháos).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈxaː.ɔs/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: cha‧os

Noun

chaos m (uncountable)

1. chaos (disorder)
2. (cosmogony) primordial disorder

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin chaos, from Ancient Greek χάος (kháos).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ka.o/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

chaos m (uncountable)

1. chaos

Further reading

• “chaos” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek χάος (kháos).

Noun

chaos n (genitive chaī); second declension

1. chaos

References

• chaos in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• chaos in The Perseus Project (1999) Perseus Encyclopedia‎
• chaos in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• chaos in William Smith, editor (1848) A Dictionary of Greek Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray

Etymology

From Ancient Greek χάος (kháos, “vast chasm, void”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈxa.ɔs/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

chaos m inan

1. chaos