The word "crevasse" entered English around 1823 from French crevasse, meaning a deep crack or fissure, particularly in a glacier. The French word developed from Old French crevace (a crack), from Vulgar Latin *crepacia, derived from the Latin verb crepare (to crack, rattle, burst). English had already borrowed an earlier form of the same word as "crevice" in the 14th century, making crevasse and crevice doublets — the same word entered into a language twice through different routes or at different times.
The distinction between "crevice" and "crevasse" in English is one of scale and specificity. A crevice is a narrow crack in rock or masonry — small, containable, even domestic. A crevasse is a potentially lethal fissure in a glacier, sometimes hundreds of metres deep and concealed by snow bridges that may collapse under a climber's weight. The French language uses crevasse for both senses
Latin crepare is onomatopoeic — it imitates the sound of cracking or snapping. This sound-symbolic quality links it to a family of expressive words: "creak," "crack," "crash," and "crackle" in English, though these derive from Germanic roots rather than Latin. The Latin verb produced several English descendants beyond crevice and crevasse: "decrepit" (literally cracking apart with age), "discrepancy" (a cracking-apart of agreement), and "crepuscular" (relating to twilight, when daylight cracks or breaks).
Glacial crevasses form when ice flows over uneven terrain or changes speed, creating tensile stresses that exceed the ice's strength. The resulting cracks can be metres wide and extend to depths of 45 metres or more — below that depth, the pressure of overlying ice causes plastic deformation rather than brittle fracture. The most dangerous crevasses are those hidden by thin snow bridges, which may support their own weight but collapse when a person steps on them. This hazard makes
In the American South, "crevasse" has a second specific meaning: a breach in a river levee, particularly along the Mississippi. This usage dates to the 19th century, when levee failures produced catastrophic flooding. The 1927 Great Mississippi Flood involved numerous crevasses along the river's length, displacing over 600,000 people. The engineering challenge of preventing crevasses in artificial