Canyon, Channel, Chasm, Chimney: Origins, Forms, Histories of Words Meaning Valley, Cave

The natural features of a region are called its topography. The word comes from Greek topos ("place").

English speakers have a long history of inventing (or borrowing from other languages) all sorts of different names for related topographical features.

Valleys and caves, for example, as well as human-made features having similar topographical effects, are known by a wide range of words in English, each with its own unique story to tell.

In the alphabetically arranged presentation of such terms in the current series, the next words are these: canyon, channel, chasm, and chimney. Here is an overview of their origins, forms, and histories. The dates of first appearance of the forms and meanings are from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Canyon
Canyon entered English in the 19th century from American Spanish cañón, which is probably an alteration of obsolete Spanish callón, an augmentation of calle ("street"), from Latin callis ("footpath").

A deep, narrow valley with steep sides and often with a stream flowing through it is a canyon (1837).

Channel
Modern English channel (16th century) comes from Middle English chanel (13th century), which is an anglicization of Middle French chanel, from Latin canalis ("channel, pipe"). Canalis (the source of the English word canal) comes from canna ("reed," the source of English cane), from Greek kanna. The Greek word is of Semitic origin, being akin, for example, to Arabic qanah ("hollow stick, reed").

The hollow bed where a natural stream of water flows is a channel (13th century). This sense is the original meaning of the word in English. A similar artificial course is also a channel (15th century).

Chasm
Chasm entered English in the 16th century from Latin chasma, from Greek chasma. The word is akin to Latin hiare ("to gape, yawn").

Originally chasm denotes a large, deep gaping in the surface of the earth viewed as a whole (1596). A later, extended meaning of the word is a fissure or cleft in a mountain or rock, between two precipices, or in any similar feature.

Chimney
Modern English chimney comes from Middle English chimney (15th century) and cheminey (14th century), from Middle French cheminée, which goes back through Late Latin caminata and Latin caminus ("furnace, fireplace") to Greek kaminos.

The principal original meanings of chimney are a fireplace (now British dialectal only) and a vertical structure by which smoke from a fireplace rises and escapes (both senses, 14th century).

A narrow vertical cleft in a large rock is called, because of its shape, a chimney (19th century). This use of the word originated among climbers who could scale a cliff by pressing firmly against the opposite sides of the cleft.
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Ready Reference 2004. CD-ROM. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2004.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 11th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2006.

Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 2007.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.