chaos
Plural: chaoses
Noun
- A state of complete disorder and confusion.
- a state of extreme confusion and disorder
- the formless and disordered state of matter before the creation of the cosmos
- (Greek mythology) the most ancient of gods; the personification of the infinity of space preceding creation of the universe
- (physics) a dynamical system that is extremely sensitive to its initial conditions
- The unordered state of matter in classical accounts of cosmogony.
- Any state of disorder; a confused or amorphous mixture or conglomeration.
- A behaviour of iterative non-linear systems in which arbitrarily small variations in initial conditions become magnified over time.
- One of the two metaphysical forces of the world in some fantasy settings, as opposed to law.
- A vast chasm or abyss.
- A given medium; a space in which something exists or lives; an environment.
Examples
- After the earthquake, the local hospital was in chaos
- His opponent’s desperate plays created CHAOS on the board, making it hard to find a good word.
- to descend into chaos
Origin / Etymology
Borrowed from Ancient Greek χάος (kháos, “vast chasm, void”). Doublet of gas, which was borrowed through Dutch.
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 from the 1960s.
Synonyms
bedlam, pandemonium, topsy-turvydom, topsy-turvyness, disorder
Scrabble Score: 10
chaos: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordchaos: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
chaos: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary