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Definition of "chaos" []

  • A condition or place of great disorder or confusion. (noun)
  • A disorderly mass; a jumble: The desk was a chaos of papers and unopened letters. (noun)
  • The disordered state of unformed matter and infinite space supposed in some cosmogonic views to have existed before the ordered universe. (noun)
  • Mathematics A dynamical system that has a sensitive dependence on its initial conditions. (noun)
  • Obsolete An abyss; a chasm. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "chaos" in a sentence
  • "Some of the early investigators of chaos were the American physicist Mitchell Feigenbaum; the Polish-born mathematician and inventor of fractals see fractal geometry Benoit Mandelbrot; the American mathematician James Yorke, who popularized the term “chaos”; and the American meteorologist Edward Lorenz."
  • "I hope that the chaos is abating on schedule today!"
  • "I love San Diego as a city, but it simply can no longer handle this event, and this nearly insignificant expansion isn't going to change anything. agonist yeah, the lines suck but the chaos is also kindof exciting. you have to be a hardcore fan to get into some of the panels and that in itself is like a geeky badge of coolness."