Forms: 4 crevace, -yce, 4–5 creveys, (creu-), cravas(e, (crau-), 4–6 creves, (creu-), 4–7 crevesse, (creu-), 5 creveis, creuys, crayues, (cref(f)eys, crefes), 5–6 craues, 6 crevisse, craivesse, 5–7 creuice, 6–7 creuis, (crev-), 7 creuas, crevasse, creuise, 7–8 crevise, 8 crivess, 5– crevice. [ME. crevace, a. OF. crevace, mod.F. crevasse:—late L. crepātia, f. L. crepāre to creak, rattle, crack: cf. CREVE. Already in the 14th c. the stress began to be shifted to the first syllable, and the unaccented second syllable to be weakened to -esse, -isse, -ice. The mod.F. form has been re-adopted in CREVASSE.]
1. A crack producing an opening in the surface or through the thickness of anything solid; a cleft, rift, chink, fissure.
c. 1340. Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 2183. A creuisse of an olde cragge.
1382. Wyclif, Nehem. iv. 7. The chinys or cravasis begunnen to be closid.
c. 1384. Chaucer, H. Fame, 2086. Hyt gan out crepe at somme crevace.
c. 1400. Lanfranc’s Cirurg., 134. If þe creveis [MS. B. creffeys] perse not þe brayn scolle.
1552. Huloet, Craues or creues. Vide in chyncke.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. (1568), 167 b. With a barcke gapynge and havinge crevisses.
1592. W. Perkins, Cases Consc. (1619), 202. Hee sees but one little beame of the Sunne, by a small creuise.
a. 1628. Preston, New Covt. (1634), 77. There was but a little crevis opened.
1678. trans. Gaya’s Arms War, 73. Care must be had that there be no Cracks, Flaws, Crevasses, nor Honey-combs in her Cylender or Chace.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 266, ¶ 4. To peep at a Crevise, and look in at People.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), VII. 286. In winter it lies hid in the crevices of walls.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., II. § 20. 335. Water … percolating freely through the crevices … to all depths of the glacier.
b. spec. in Mining. A fissure in which a deposit of ore or metal is found. Also attrib.
1872. Raymond, Statist. Mines, 262. The crevice is filled with a mixture of carbonate of lead and bunches of undecomposed galena.
1870. Atcherley, Trip Boërland, 175. Gold … known as ‘crevice gold,’ from … being picked out of crevices in the bed-rock.
c. Rarely = CREVASSE, in a glacier.
1852. Alb. Smith, in Blackw. Mag., LXXI. 53. Tairraz, who preceded me, had jumped over a crevice.
† 2. A deep furrow or channel. Obs. Cf. CREVICED.
(Quot. 1609 is doubtful).
1580. Baret, Alv., C 1610. Leaues, wherein Creuises, or smal lines are seene … folia striata.
1609. W. M., Man in Moone (1849), 18. Pish, your band hangeth right enought, what, yet more crevises in your stockings?
