chaosn.
/ˈkeɪɒs/, U.S. /ˈkeɪˌɑs/ΘΚΠ
the world > space > relative position > condition of being open or not closed > an opening or aperture > [noun] > wide or gaping
chaos?a1425
yawn1602
chasm1627
chasment1655
?a1425 (a1396) W. Hilton Scale of Perfection (Lamb. 472) (2000) i. lxxvii. l. 2265 There is a gret chaos [1533 cause] (that is a grete myrkenesse to sai) is bitwix us and yow, that we moun not come to you ne yee to us.
1565 W. Alley Πτωχομυσεῖον ii. iii. f. 52v Betwen the bosome of Abraham, and the place of punishement there was sayd to be a great Chaos.
1582 Bible (Rheims) Luke xvi. 26 Betweene us and you there is fixed a great chaos [L. chaos, Gk. χάσμα; c1384 Wycliffite, E.V. derk place; 1526 Tyndale greate space; 1560 Geneva great gulfe].
1603 P. Holland tr. Plutarch Morals 975 What thing soever cometh within the chaos of this monster's mouth..down it goeth.
a1683 B. Whichcote Several Disc. (1702) II. xv. 332 Look downward, there is nothing but the open Mouth of that vast Chaos, the Bottomless-Pit, that gapes upon them.
1707 W. Darrell Gentleman Instructed: 2nd Pt. viii. 144 Seeing there is such an immense Chaos between our Hopes and our Fears; such a monstrous Disproportion between our Loss and our Gain.
1778 Considerations Declar. against Transubstant. 1 This Declaration..forms the great chaos, or boundary, between the elect or chosen subjects..and the reprobate.
1840 Bengal Catholic Expositor 18 July 29/2 Hell, where the rich man lay buried, tortured in flames, and separated by a wide chaos from Lazarus who was enjoying repose.
2.
a. Primordial matter personified.In Greek mythology Chaos was often represented as the oldest of the gods and the first being to exist. According to Hesiod Theogony 116, Chaos is the parent of Erebus (darkness) and Nyx (night).
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > deity > classical deity > [noun] > other classical deities
Plutoc1330
Herculesc1369
Proteusa1425
Tellusc1425
chaosa1522
grace1538
terminus1565
victory1569
Hymena1593
harvest queen1598
Hades1599
aurora1610
puffer1615
Egeria1624
hour1637
Hygeia1737
Kore1844
Nike1846
vintage-god1873
a1522 G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid (1957) iv. ix. 77 Herebus, the grysly of the deyp hellys see, Chaos, confoundar of elymentis.
1549 T. Chaloner tr. Erasmus Praise of Folie sig. Aiiiv My father..was neyther Chaos, nor Orcus, nor Saturnus, nor any other of that olde and rustie race of Gods, but Plutus.
1592 A. Fraunce 3rd Pt. Countesse of Pembrokes Yuychurch f. 4v Chaos as yet had not ended her chile-bearing [sic] labor & trauaile, but was troubled with heauie burdens.
1651 T. Hobbes Leviathan i. xii. 55 The unformed matter of the World, was a God, by the name of Chaos.
1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost ii. 895 Where eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal Anarchie. View more context for this quotation
1728 A. Pope Dunciad i. 10 Dulness o'er all possess'd her antient right, Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night.
1810 P. Stockdale Poet. Wks. II. 339 Chaos shall resume o'er earth Her sceptre as before its birth.
1850 T. Carlyle Latter-day Pamphlets vii. 39 If Chaos himself sat umpire, what better could he do?
1910 C. Moss Bible Angels 155 A crown is oft of thorns, a throne the seat Where Chaos sits with Ruin at his feet.
2004 J. McCourt Queer Street xxiv. 465 She was enacting the Queen of the Night, Chaos in whalebone stays.
b. The formless void believed to have existed before the creation of the universe; primordial matter.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the universe > [noun] > origin > specific
abyssa1398
chaos1531
fortuitous concourse of atomsa1676
mundane egg1684
the world > space > shape > lack of shape > [noun] > (first) formless matter
mattera1382
abyssa1398
chaos1531
unnature1843
1531 T. Elyot Bk. named Gouernour i. i. sig. Aijv Take awaie ordre from all thynges, what shulde than remayne? Certes nothynge finally, except some man wolde imagine eftsoones, Chaos; whiche of some is expounde a confuse mixture.
1559 in Private Prayers (1851) 101 That old confusion, which we call Chaos, wherein without order, without fashion, confusedly lay the discordant seeds of things.
1605 F. Bacon Of Aduancem. Learning i. sig. G4v The order and disposition of that Chaos or Masse, was the work of sixe dayes. View more context for this quotation
1651 N. Bacon Contin. Hist. Disc. Govt. i. 13 The whole body like a Chäos capable of any form that the next daring spirit shall brood upon it.
1730 J. Thomson Autumn in Seasons 161 As when of old..Light, uncollected, thro' the Chaos urg'd Its infant way.
1855 D. Brewster Mem. Life I. Newton (new ed.) II. xvi. 99 The formation of the earth, and the other planets, out of a general chaos.
1959 J. Kirkup tr. S. de Beauvoir Mem. Dutiful Daughter ii. 132 I could see blades of grass and clouds that were still the same as when He had snatched them out of primal chaos, and that still bore His mark.
2006 R. Kleinman Four Faces of Universe 82 There are many creation myths that tell of the emergence of the universe out of chaos.
3.
a. A state resembling that of primordial chaos; utter confusion or disorder.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > order > disorder > [noun] > chaos
havoc1480
chaos?1533
tohu-bohu1619
Tophet1837
carnage1848
choss1937
?1533 W. Tyndale Expos. Mathew Prol. f. iiiv A mase, wherin yf thou walke, thou wottest nether where thou art, nor canst fynde anye waye out. It is a confused Chaos, and a minglynge of all thynges together with out order, euery thynge contrarye to another.
1563 R. Reynolds Foundacion of Rhetorike f. lxxxvv Seing bothe lawes and the Prince, haue that honour and strength, that without them, a Chaos a confusion would followe, in the bodie of all common wealthes and kyngdomes.
1609 W. Shakespeare Troilus & Cressida i. iii. 125 This chaos when degree is suffocate. View more context for this quotation
1651 T. Hobbes Leviathan iii. xxxvi. 232 Reduce all Order..to the first Chaos of Violence, and Civill warre.
1702 Clarendon's Hist. Rebellion I. iii. 146 The whole mass of Their designs, as well what remain'd in Chaos, as what was Form'd.
1819 T. Arnold Let. 20 Nov. in A. P. Stanley Life & Corr T. Arnold (1844) I. ii. 55 I stand at times quite bewildered, in a chaos where I can see no light either before or behind.
1870 J. H. Burton Hist. Scotl. to 1688 VI. lxv. 297 In Ireland all is confusion and chaos.
1908 G. K. Chesterton Man who was Thursday i. 7 In chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Bagdad.
1960 Science 16 Sept. 730 The country degenerated into chaos.
2003 K. Pearson Don't try this at Home vi. 104 Alex comes home to a house in chaos and an exhausted wife.
b. Something consisting of unrelated or disordered parts or elements; a confused mass or mixture.
ΘΚΠ
the world > space > relative position > arrangement or fact of being arranged > absence of arrangement > [noun] > a disorderly collection
rabblea1398
hotchpotc1405
hotchpotchc1410
mishmashc1475
gaggle?1478
chaos?1550
humble-jumble1550
huddle1587
wilderness1594
lurry1607
hatterc1626
farragoa1637
bumble1648
higgledy-piggledy1659
jumble1661
clutter1666
hugger-mugger1674
litter1730
imbroglio1753
confusion1791
cludder1801
hurrah's nest1829
hotter1834
welter1857
muddle1863
splatter1895
shamble1926
?1550 J. Bale Apol. agaynste Papyst Ep. Ded. f. iiiiv The massynge presthode, whyche is the synnefull synke and confuse Chaos of all ydolatrye.
1560 W. Painter tr. W. Fulke Antiprognosticon Pref. sig. Dv I espied a lyttle heape of rubbyshe whyche..semed to be no small deformitie to the leuelled playnnesse... Some of the master masons them selues had taken paines in remouynge the same vnprofytable Chaos.
a1631 J. Donne Poems (1633) 188 Oft did we grow To be two Chaosses.
1711 A. Pope Ess. Crit. 18 One glaring Chaos and wild Heap of Wit.
1781 J. Moore View Society & Manners Italy I. xi. 118 Arranging and illuminating the vast Chaos of laws and regulations.
1818 T. L. Peacock Nightmare Abbey v. 52 In the most impassioned part of his oratory, she would convert all his ideas into a chaos, by striking up some Rondo Allegro, and saying ‘Is it not pretty?’
1878 W. Black Green Pastures xxxv. 283 The vessel went plunging on through the wild chaos of green and grey mists.
a1918 R. S. Bourne Hist. Literary Radical (1956) 98 A high quality of urban life can be developed in a ragtag chaos of undistinguished styles and general planlessness.
2009 Vanity Fair Jan. 140/1 The main wreckage lay just to the north in a dispersed chaos of torn and twisted metal.
ΘΚΠ
the world > space > shape > lack of shape > [noun] > shapeless mass
chaos1562
indigesta1616
quab1629
blotch1872
sludge1906
1562 R. Eden Let. in E. Arber 1st Three Eng. Bks. on Amer. (1885) p. xliv/1 I stilled of[f] the water from the masse or Chaos lefte of them bothe.
a1616 W. Shakespeare Henry VI, Pt. 3 (1623) iii. ii. 161 To dis-proportion me in euery part: Like to a Chaos, or an vn-lick'd Beare-whelpe. View more context for this quotation
a1660 H. Hammond Serm. (1675) xvii. 263 A false Conception in the womb is only a rude, confused, ugly Chaos, a meer lump of flesh, of no kind of figure or resemblance.
1671 J. Sharp Midwives Bk. ii. viii. 136 The next form is a rude draught of the parts, or a chaos like a lump of flesh.
1816 Ld. Byron Compl. Poet. Wks. (1905) 190 The World was void, The populous and the powerful was a lump, Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
ΚΠ
1621 R. Burton Anat. Melancholy i. ii. i. ii. 62, 64 Paracelsus stiffely maintaines,..that they [sc. devils] haue every one their severall Chaos... The water, as Paracelsus thinkes, is their [sc. Naiads'] Chaos, wherein they liue.
1621 R. Burton Anat. Melancholy ii. ii. iii. 320 Creatures, whose Chaos is the earth.
1656 R. Turner tr. Paracelsus Supreme Myst. Nature ii. iv. 52 They ought to be called earthly Spirits, because they have their Chaos and habitation under the earth.
1677 J. Webster Displaying Supposed Witchcraft xvi. 302 Paracelsus hath a Treatise of purpose, holding that they [sc. Fairies]..can glide through walls and rocks (which he calleth their Chaos) as easily as we through the air.
1753 Chambers's Cycl. Suppl. Chaos, in the phrase of Paracelsus, imports the air. It has also some other significations amongst the alchemists.
1830 H. N. Coleridge Introd. Greek Poets 111 All other men's worlds are the Poet's chaos.
1862 C. E. Wilbour tr. V. Hugo Les Misérables vii. iii. 127/1 The conscience is the chaos of chimeras, of lusts and of temptations.
6. Mathematics. Unpredictable, apparently random behaviour exhibited by a dynamical system governed by deterministic laws, typically considered to consist of frequent instability, aperiodicity, and the occurrence of widely diverging outcomes corresponding to small changes in the initial conditions of the system.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > number > mathematics > [noun] > idealized system or process > of specific system
finite state1949
chaos1974
1974 Science 15 Nov. 646/2 Li and Yorke's general theorem for cycles of period 3 may be extended..to show that equations of the generic form of 1 and 2 will enter a regime of chaos, with an uncountable number of cycles of integral period along with an uncountable number of aperiodic solutions.
1978 Jrnl. Math. Anal. & Applic. 63 200 Although chaos was originally observed in the context of a hydrodynamical system, this phenomenon has spurred the interest primarily of mathematical biologists, particularly those in the field of population dynamics.
1989 I. Stewart Does God play Dice? i. 21 One of the characteristic features of chaos is that tiny errors propagate and grow.
1999 T. Pratchett et al. Sci. of Discworld xiv. 108 There may be some big changes to the solar system on the way. The underlying reason is chaos—chaos in the sense of ‘chaos theory’.
2011 R. Kautz Chaos xiv. 239 We'll use the shift map to explore chaos in one of its most rudimentary forms.
7. With capital initial. The forces of evil or disorder as represented in certain fantasy fiction or role-playing games.
ΚΠ
1975 E. Barnouw Tube of Plenty (1977) v. 369 Each series depicted huge enemy networks for undercover warfare. Some had names like KAOS (Get Smart).]
1983 S. Jackson (title) Citadel of chaos.
1989 Dragon Nov. 34/2 No intellect..could stand the strain of being joined with pure Chaos.
2006 R. Ford RuneQuest: Monsters 154/1 Aside from a foul odour and a tendency to spoil the attacks of its enemies, the Chaos goat's fumes cause no other ill-effects.
Compounds
C1. General attributive and instrumental.
ΚΠ
1587 M. Grove Most Famous Hist. Pelops & Hippodamia sig. F.v Ye gods that glide on starrie skie, And guide that Chaos ball most equally.
1647 in F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Comedies & Trag. sig. fv His soule might run..Into their rude and indigested braine, And so informe their Chaos-lump againe.
1690 T. Burnet Theory of Earth iii. 109 Nature relapses hastily into that chaos-state.
1791 W. Blake French Revol. in Compl. Writings (1972) 141 Aumont, whose chaos-born soul Eternally wand'ring a Comet and swift-falling fire, pale enter'd the chamber.
1822 Ld. Byron Heaven & Earth i. iii, in Liberal 1 202 Come, Anah! quit this chaos-founded prison.
1834 T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus iii. ix. 97/1 Not a few..now swim weltering in the Chaos-flood.
1907 C. M. Jones From Rime to Reason 24 The never comprehensible chaos-begotten theogony of the ancients.
1941 G. Taggard Long View 98 From these steps, this chaos whirl, A dance, new music: momentum all our own.
2000 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 13 Apr. 74/1 She was stranded in chaos-stricken Moscow.
C2.
chaos theorist n. an expert or specialist in chaos theory.
ΚΠ
1985 Eastern Econ. Jrnl. 11 5 It is just beyond w = 3 that there begin to occur the manifestations that were unanticipated before their revaluation by the chaos theorists.
1999 Financial Times 2 Sept. 10/4 The problem for chaos theorists has been that they are viewed with scepticism by some scientists, who see their work as flashy and crowd-pleasing.
2008 U. Pillkahn Using Trends & Scenarios as Tools for Strategy Devel. i. 29 The chaos theorist makes a plausible case for degrees of freedom, complexity and the unfathomable dependencies of events.
chaos theory n. any of various theories involving or concerning chaos or disorder; spec. (in later use) the mathematical study of chaos (sense 6) and chaotic systems.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > number > mathematics > [noun] > theories or branches of
menadry1570
pure mathematics1605
mechanics1612
residuation1846
chaos theory1880
number theory1901
formalism1913
intuitionism1913
replacement theory1914
biomathematics1923
proof theory1929
finitism1935
mereology1938
combinatorics1941
cryptarithmetic1943
game theory1945
numerical analysis1946
queueing theory1951
constructivism1959
complexity1963
catastrophe theory1971
chaology1985
the world > relative properties > order > disorder > [noun] > chaos > theory
chaos theory1880
1880 Trans. Sanitary Inst. Great Brit. 2 130 We must give up the chaos theory, and believe that the creating power through the preceding ages neither slumbered nor slept.
1938 Amer. Jrnl. Math. 60 935 The demands of chaos theory go considerably beyond the best knowledge of the present day.
1965 Catholic Hist. Rev. 50 628 The author uses the traditional classification of linear and cyclic history to which he adds a third category of chaos theory.
1987 Nature 23 Apr. 753/2 A survey of how determinism fares in various branches of physics, including classical mechanics, relativity theory..,probabilistic theories, modern chaos theory and the quantum theory.
2011 Independent on Sunday 11 Sept. (New Review) 22/1 [Charles Jencks] is also known for his ‘Cosmic’ garden in Scotland, a Postmodernist landscape inspired by fractals, genetics and chaos theory.
chaos magic n. (also with capital initials) an approach to magic which encourages practitioners to innovate and borrow methods and practices depending on what is most suitable at any one time, rather than to adhere to a rigid system.
ΚΠ
1989 T. M. Luhrmann Persuasions Witch's Craft viii. 93 They..conceptualize darkness in two other ways, as the ‘abyss’ in kabbalah, or as the ‘chaos’ in something called ‘chaos magick’.
1994 Fortean Times Oct. 63/1 One of the puzzling things about Chaos Magic has been that despite its claims to be non-traditional and spontaneous, it has tended to organise itself in a more-or-less traditional hierarchical order.
2013 E. Kovacs Burnt Black vii. 63 That looks like a typical self-generated sigil, maybe something that came from chaos magic.
Derivatives
ˈchaos-like †(a) adv.in a chaotic manner, haphazardly (obsolete); (b) adj.chaotic, disordered.
ΚΠ
1596 R. Linche Dom Diego in Diella sig. E5 Griefe would not let the wryter tedious be, Nor would it suffer him fit words to sort, but pens it (chaos-like) confusedly.
1610 J. Guillim Display of Heraldrie To Rdr. sig. (b)2 By dissoluing of this Chaos-like or confused Lump.
a1656 J. Hales Golden Remains (1673) 277 A mediocrity of care to see that matters lie not too Chaos-like.
1733 Pract. Husbandman & Planter I. i. p. lvi Those gloomy Shades of Ignorance and Inactivity, under which (Chaos like) the World had long wandered.
1747 E. Teft Orinthia's Misc. 140 A Chaos-like Confusion fills your Breast, And thoughts in Embryo kill your wonted Rest.
1858 Daily Evening Bull. (San Francisco) 10 Mar. Sea, air and sky, chaos-like, seem near and far.
1905 Musical Opinion Mar. 418/3 Mahler of Vienna—whose chaos-like Symphony of one hour and a quarter's duration was performed at a recent Court Theatre Symphony Concert.
2014 H.-D. Lee Spirit, Qi & Multitude vii. 194 The transcendental and indeterminate—chaos-like—conditions of the genesis of the cosmos.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2017; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.?a1425