Search for crossword answers and clues
An intersection or crossing of two tracts in the form of the letter X
Answer for the clue "An intersection or crossing of two tracts in the form of the letter X ", 11 letters:
decussation
Word definitions for decussation in dictionaries
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Decussation \De`cus*sa"tion\, n. [L. decussatio.] Act of crossing at an acute angle, or state of being thus crossed; an intersection in the form of an X; as, the decussation of lines, nerves, etc.
WordNet
Word definitions in WordNet
n. an intersection or crossing of two tracts in the form of the letter X [syn: chiasma , chiasm ]
Wikipedia
Word definitions in Wikipedia
Decussation is used in biological contexts to describe a crossing. (In Latin anatomical terms the form decussatio is used, e.g. decussatio pyramidum .) In anatomy the term chiasma or chiasm means nearly the same as decussation. Examples include: In the ...
Wiktionary
Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. A crossing or intersection of lines etc. so as to form an X-shape.
Usage examples of decussation.
With what Equity, Chiromantical conjecturers decry these decussations in the Lines and Mounts of the hand?
For to omit the hioides or throat-bone of animals, the furcula or merry-thought in birds, which supporteth the scapulæ, affording a passage for the winde-pipe and the gullet, the wings of Flyes, and disposure of their legges in their first formation from maggots, and the position of their horns, wings and legges, in their Aurelian cases and swadling clouts: The back of the Cimex Arboreus, found often upon Trees and lesser plants, doth elegantly discover the Burgundian decussation.
And (not to enlarge upon the cruciated character of Trismegistus, or handed crosses, so often occurring in the Needles of Pharoah, and Obelisks of Antiquity) the StatuæIsiacæ, Teraphims, and little Idols, found about the Mummies, do make a decussation of Jacob's Crosse, with their armes, like that on the head of Ephraim and Manasses, and this decussis is also graphically described between them.
As the backs of several Snakes and Serpents, elegantly remarkable in the Aspis, and the Dart-snake, in the Chiasmus and larger decussations upon the back of the Rattle-snake, and in the close and finer texture of the mater formicarum, or snake that delights in Ant-hils.
Perspective pictures, in their Base, Horison, and lines of distances, cannot escape these Rhomboidall decussations.