Chaos
Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈkeɪ.ɒs/
- Rhymes: -eɪɒs
Origin
Borrowed from Ancient Greek χάος (khaos, "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.
Full definition of chaos
Noun
chaos
(usually uncountable; plural chaoses)- (obsolete) A vast chasm or abyss.
- The unordered state of matter in classical accounts of cosmogony
- Any state of disorder, any confused or amorphous mixture or conglomeration.
- 1977, Irwin Edman, Adam, the Baby, and the Man from Mars‎, 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
- (obsolete, rare) A given medium; a space in which something exists or lives; an environment.
- 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 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?
- (mathematics) Behaviour of iterative non-linear systems in which arbitrarily small variations in initial conditions become magnified over time.
- (fantasy) One of the two metaphysical forces of the world in some fantasy settings, as opposed to law.
Synonyms
- See