The DICT Development Group

  Chaos \Cha"os\ (k[=a]"[o^]s), n. [L. chaos chaos (in senses 1 &
     2), Gr. cha`os, fr. cha`inein (root cha) to yawn, to gape, to
     open widely. Cf. Chasm.]
     1. An empty, immeasurable space; a yawning chasm. [Archaic]
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Between us and there is fixed a great chaos. --Luke
                                                    xvi. 26
                                                    (Rhemish
                                                    Trans.).
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. The confused, unorganized condition or mass of matter
        before the creation of distinct and orderly forms.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Any confused or disordered collection or state of things;
        a confused mixture; confusion; disorder.
        [1913 Webster]

  chaos
       n 1: a state of extreme confusion and disorder [syn: pandemonium,
             bedlam, topsy-turvydom, topsy-turvyness]
       2: the formless and disordered state of matter before the
          creation of the cosmos
       3: (Greek mythology) the most ancient of gods; the
          personification of the infinity of space preceding
          creation of the universe
       4: (physics) a dynamical system that is extremely sensitive to
          its initial conditions

  161 Moby Thesaurus words for "chaos":
     agitation, aloofness, amorphia, amorphism, amorphousness,
     anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, anarchy, antinomianism,
     astronomical unit, bedlam, befuddlement, bewilderment, blurriness,
     bluster, bother, botheration, brawl, broil, brouhaha, cacophony,
     celestial spaces, cloud, commotion, confusion, cosmic space,
     criminal syndicalism, daze, diffusion, discombobulation,
     discomfiture, discomposure, disconcertion, discontinuity,
     discreteness, disjunction, dislocation, disorder, disorderliness,
     disorganization, disorientation, dispersal, dispersion, disruption,
     dissolution, disturbance, ebullition, embarrassment, embroilment,
     empty space, entropy, ether space, fabulous formless darkness,
     fanaticism, ferment, flap, flummox, flurry, fluster, flutter, fog,
     fomentation, foofaraw, formlessness, foul-up, frenzy, fuddle,
     fuddlement, fume, furor, furore, fury, fuss, fuzziness, hassle,
     haze, haziness, hubbub, incoherence, inconsistency, indecisiveness,
     indefiniteness, indeterminateness, interstellar space, jumble,
     lawlessness, license, light-year, lynch law, maze, mess, messiness,
     metagalactic space, misrule, mist, mistiness, mix-up, mob law,
     mob rule, mobocracy, morass, muddle, muddlement, nihilism,
     nonadhesion, noncohesion, obscurity, ocean of emptiness,
     ochlocracy, orderlessness, outer space, pandemonium, parsec,
     passion, perplexity, perturbation, pother, pressureless space,
     primal chaos, pucker, racket, rage, rebellion, revolution, row,
     ruckus, ruffle, rumpus, scattering, screw-up, separateness,
     shapelessness, shuffle, snafu, space, stew, storminess, sweat,
     swivet, syndicalism, tempestuousness, the void, the void above,
     tizzy, tohubohu, tumult, tumultuousness, turbulence, turmoil,
     unadherence, unadhesiveness, unclearness, unruliness, unsettlement,
     untenacity, uproar, upset, vagueness, wildness, zeal,
     zealousness
  
  

  chaos
       
          A property of some non-linear dynamic systems which exhibit
          sensitive dependence on initial conditions.  This means that
          there are initial states which evolve within some finite time
          to states whose separation in one or more dimensions of state
          space depends, in an average sense, exponentially on their
          initial separation.  Such systems may still be completely
          deterministic in that any future state of the system depends
          only on the initial conditions and the equations describing
          the change of the system with time.  It may, however, require
          arbitrarily high precision to actually calculate a future
          state to within some finite precision.
       
          ["On defining chaos", R. Glynn Holt
           and D. Lynn Holt
          .
         
       ftp://mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/etext/ippe/preprints/Phil_of_Science/Holt_and_Holt.On_Defining_Chaos)">(ftp://mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/etext/ippe/preprints/Phil_of_Science/Holt_and_Holt.On_Defining_Chaos)]
       
          Fixed precision floating-point arithmetic, as used by most
          computers, may actually introduce chaotic dependence on
          initial conditions due to the accumulation of rounding errors
          (which constitutes a non-linear system).
       
          (1995-02-07)