| 词组 | abysm |
| 释义 | abysm Reader's Digest 1983 adverts to abysm as an old variant of abyss that is now archaic or obsolete. This is not quite correct, though it is close. Both abysm and abyss were in use in the 14th century for the void believed in the old cosmography to exist below the earth. Abyss has continued in vigorous use; abysm might well have become obsolete except for Shakespeare. In The Tempest (1612) he wrote this line: • What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time? This line has continued to echo in later writers: • ... the surviving memory, signalling out of the dark backward and abysm of time the images of perished things —Robert Louis Stevenson, Memories and Portraits, 1887 • ... the mind grows dizzy at contemplating the abysm of time between —Norman Douglas, Siren Land, 1911 • To advocate ... appeared in English in the dark backward and abysm of time, but during the eighteenth century it seems to have dropped out of general use —H. L. Mencken, "The American Language" (1936), in Yale Rev. Anthology, 1942 • ... the illumination, through people, of the dark backward and abysm of American time —Carlos Baker, Saturday Rev., 20 Aug. 1955 • ... the Cherry Lane Theatre, which is located somewhere in the dark backward and abysm of Greenwich Village —Wolcott Gibbs, New Yorker, 19 Feb. 1955 Other modern use of abysm also exists but is rare. • Pleasantly and with delicacy he picks his way among some of the less quoted lyrics, avoiding such abysms as "The Vampire" and some of the more purple ... pieces—New Republic, 21 Oct. 1940 • ... those other forces to whom he gave his love and loyalty, which were taking his administration down to an abysm of political dishonor —The Autobiography of William Allen White, 1946 |
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