Adjacent Words

Fissure definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

FIS'SURE, n. fish'ure. [L. fissura, from findo, to split.]
1. A cleft; a narrow chasm made by the parting of any substance; a longitudinal opening; as the fissure of a rock.
2. In surgery, a crack or slit in a bone, either transversely or longitudinally, by means of external force.
3. In anatomy, a deep, narrow sulcus, or depression, dividing the anterior and middle lobes of the cerebrum on each side.
FIS'SURE, v.t. To cleave; to divide; to crack or fracture.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a long narrow depression in a surface [syn: crevice, cranny, crack, fissure, chap]
2: a long narrow opening [syn: crack, cleft, crevice, fissure, scissure]
3: (anatomy) a long narrow slit or groove that divides an organ into lobes v
1: break into fissures or fine cracks

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin fissura, from fissus Date: 14th century 1. a narrow opening or crack of considerable length and depth usually occurring from some breaking or parting 2. a. a natural cleft between body parts or in the substance of an organ b. a break or slit in tissue usually at the junction of skin and mucous membrane 3. a separation or disagreement in thought or viewpoint ; schism <fissures in a political party> II. verb (fissured; fissuring) Date: 1656 transitive verb to break into fissures ; cleave intransitive verb crack, divide

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 an opening, usu. long and narrow, made esp. by cracking, splitting, or separation of parts. 2 Bot. & Anat. a narrow opening in an organ etc., esp. a depression between convolutions of the brain. 3 a cleavage. --v.tr. & intr. split or crack. Etymology: ME f. OF fissure or L fissura f. findere fiss- cleave

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fissure Fis"sure, v. t. To cleave; to divide; to crack or fracture.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Fissure Fis"sure, n. [L. fissura, fr. findere, fissum, to cleave, split; akin to E. bite: cf. F. fissure.] A narrow opening, made by the parting of any substance; a cleft; as, the fissure of a rock. Cerebral fissures (Anat.), the furrows or clefts by which the surface of the cerebrum is divided; esp., the furrows first formed by the infolding of the whole wall of the cerebrum. Fissure needle (Surg.), a spiral needle for catching together the gaping lips of wounds. --Knight. Fissure of rolando (Anat.), the furrow separating the frontal from the parietal lobe in the cerebrum. Fissure of Sylvius (Anat.), a deep cerebral fissure separating the frontal from the temporal lobe. See Illust. under Brain. Fissure vein (Mining), a crack in the earth's surface filled with mineral matter. --Raymond.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(fissures) A fissure is a deep crack in something, especially in rock or in the ground. N-COUNT

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Cleft, crevice, chink, crack, cranny, break, breach, gap, interstice, opening, chasm, rift, fracture.

Moby Thesaurus

abysm, abyss, amputate, arachnoid, arbor vitae, archipallium, arroyo, ax, between brain, bisect, box canyon, brain stem, breach, break, break open, break up, breakage, broach, burst, bust, butcher, caesura, canyon, carve, cavity, cerebellar hemispheres, cerebellum, cerebral cortex, cerebrospinal fluid, cerebrum, cessation, chap, chasm, check, chimney, chink, chip, chop, cleave, cleft, cleuch, clough, col, come apart, come unstuck, convolution, corpus callosum, corpus striatum, coulee, couloir, crack, cranny, crevasse, crevice, cut, cut away, cut in two, cut off, cut open, cwm, defile, dell, dichotomize, diencephalon, dike, disintegrate, dispart, dissever, ditch, divaricate, divide, donga, draw, dura mater, endbrain, excavation, excise, exfoliate, fall to pieces, fault, flaw, flume, fly open, folia, forebrain, fornix, fracture, frontal lobe, furrow, gap, gape, gash, give away, give way, glial cells, globus pallidus, gorge, gray matter, groove, gulch, gulf, gully, gyrus, hack, halve, hew, hiatus, hindbrain, hippocampus, hole, hypothalamus, incise, incision, interim, intermission, interruption, interval, jigsaw, joint, kloof, lacuna, lance, lay open, leak, lenticular nucleus, letup, limbic lobe, little brain, lobe, lull, mantle, medulla oblongata, meninges, mesencephalon, metencephalon, midbrain, moat, myelencephalon, neopallium, notch, nullah, occipital lobe, ope, open, open up, opening, optic chiasm, pallium, pare, parietal lobe, part, pass, passage, pause, pia mater, pineal body, pituitary body, pons, prune, ravine, rend, rent, reticular system, rhombencephalon, rift, rime, rip, rive, rupture, saw, scale, schism, scissor, scissure, seam, separate, sever, slash, slice, slit, slot, snap, snip, splinter, split, spread, spread out, spring a leak, spring open, start, subthalamus, sunder, suspension, swing open, tap, tear, tear open, telencephalon, temporal lobe, thalamus, throw open, trench, valley, ventricle, vermis, void, wadi, white matter, whittle