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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
fissure
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ About a million tons of lava are pouring every day from the fissure which opened on the Sicilian volcano in December.
▪ Ahead lay a large fissure in the ice, three feet across.
▪ Even within Anglican evangelicalism fissures appeared.
▪ They suggest heaven and earth are the product of a primal fissure.
▪ This meant that the magma that fed the fissures of the second phase was almost completely de-gassed, hence its quiet emission.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Fissure

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.

Fissure

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

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
fissure

c.1400, from Old French fissure (13c.) and directly from Latin fissura "a cleft," from root of findere "to split, cleave, separate, divide," from PIE *bhi-n-d-, from root *bheid- "to split" (cognates: Sanskrit bhinadmi "I cleave," Old High German bizzan "to bite," Old English\nbita "a piece bitten off, morsel," Old Norse beita "to\nhunt with dogs," beita "pasture, food").

Wiktionary
fissure

n. a crack or opening, as in a rock vb. To split forming fissures.

WordNet
fissure

v. break into fissures or fine cracks

fissure
  1. n. a long narrow depression in a surface [syn: crevice, cranny, crack, chap]

  2. a long narrow opening [syn: crack, cleft, crevice, scissure]

  3. (anatomy) a long narrow slit or groove that divides an organ into lobes

Wikipedia
Fissure

In anatomy, a fissure ( Latin fissura, plural fissurae) is a groove, natural division, deep furrow, elongated cleft, or tear in various parts of the body also generally called a sulcus, or in the brain a sulcus.

Fissure (disambiguation)

In anatomy, a fissure is a deep, elongated groove or tear in various parts of the body.

Fissure may also refer to:

  • Fissure (dentistry), a break in the tooth enamel
  • Skin fissure
  • Anal fissure
  • Fissure of the nipple, a condition that results from running, breastfeeding and other friction-causing exposures
  • Fissured tongue, a condition characterized by deep grooves (fissures) in the tongue
  • Fissure vent, a linear volcanic vent through which lava erupts, usually without any explosive activity
  • Ice fissure, deep fracture or crevasse in glaciology
  • Fissures (film), a 2009 film

Usage examples of "fissure".

I had placed myself at the port-scuttle, and saw some magnificent substructures of coral, zoophytes, seaweed, and fucus, agitating their enormous claws, which stretched out from the fissures of the rock.

A man hanging at the end of the alpenstock might conceivably swing into the fissure, but h would necessitate a feat of acrobatics far beyond the powers of either himself or Gabula.

Between the thick cords were dark anfractuous clefts five times his height, tapering away to knife-thin fissures.

It was then that Doctor Syn noticed the brass bell of a blunderbuss wobbling at him through a fissure in the wall.

Northwest more than a thousand klicks along the high ridge from Gunung Agung is Kilimacharo, where the denizens of the lower terraces disinter their dead from the loamy fissures after a decent interval and carry the bones high above breathable atmosphere -- climbing in handsewn skinsuits and pressure masks -- to rebury their relatives in rock-hard ice near the eighteen-thousand-meter level, with the skulls staring through ice toward the summit in eternal hopefulness.

The ground on either side of the fissure had buckled and thrust upward so that the crevice was bordered by mounds of dirt and rubble.

Newt, appearing and disappearing rapidly in his agitation, buzzed around the fissure.

Cazin and Rey both produced abortion by forcible dilatation of the anus for fissure, but Gayet used both the fingers and a speculum in a case at five months and the woman went to term.

Or had some other stress worked apart the fissures that had spidered their way across the perfect porcelain image of the Doss family?

A great seam had opened above the long cliff, and the terrible Rattlesnake Ledge, with all its envenomed reptiles, its dark fissures and black caverns, was buried forever beneath a mighty incumbent mass of ruin.

ALIENS FROM THE FISSURES, IT SEEMS, CAPTAIN, have returned to their realm now that Equinox is gone.

Louis reports a case in which there was exstrophy of the heart through the fissure.

The cliff, as has been said, rose to a height of three hundred feet, but the mass was unbroken throughout, and even at its base, scarcely washed by the sea, it did not offer the smallest fissure which would serve as a dwelling.

She led the way now, up the fissured slope, the hammering of her heart competing with that of the handyman.

At first, much of the damage there suggested natural causes: an earthquake, perhaps, that had left downed buildings, fissured roadways, and fires casually gutting homes from which all occupants had fled.