bathyscaphe

[ bath-uh-skeyf, -skaf ]

noun

, Oceanography.

1. a navigable, submersible vessel for exploring the depths of the ocean, having a separate, overhead chamber filled with gasoline for buoyancy and iron or steel weights for ballast.

bathyscaphe

/ băth′ĭ-skăf′,-skāf′ /

1. A free-diving vessel used to explore the ocean at great depths. The original bathyscaphe, constructed in 1948, was made of a cylindrical metal float and a suspended steel ball that could hold two people. The float contained gasoline used to lift the vessel, and heavy iron material used for ballast. Design improvements allowed the second bathyscaphe in 1960 to descend to a record 10,912 m (35,791 ft) in the Marianas Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, almost to the deepest level ever sounded on Earth.

Word History and Origins

Origin of bathyscaphe¹

1947; < French, equivalent to bathy- bathy- + Greek skáphos ship; coined by Auguste Piccard

Example Sentences

A bathyscaphe is a self-propelled submersible used in deep-sea dives.

From Seattle Times

The US Navy had acquired a submersible called the bathyscaphe Trieste and Don, a submarine lieutenant, volunteered to join the project.

From BBC

The bathyscaphe had been built to withstand more than 1,000 times the pressure at sea level, but it had never been tested to its limits at these kinds of depths until now.

From BBC

On 23 January, 1960, Don and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard, who had designed the bathyscaphe with his father Auguste Piccard, began their descent beneath the waves.

From BBC

The start of the dive went smoothly, but at around 9,000m, the bathyscaphe jolted with an alarming bang.

From BBC