suture, n.
(ˈsjuːtjʊə(r), -tʃə(r))
Also 7 erron. sutor.
[ad. F. suture or its source L. sūtūra, n. of action f. sūt-, pa. ppl. stem of suĕre sew v.1: see -ure.]
1. a. Surg. The joining of the lips of a wound, or of the ends of a severed nerve or tendon, by stitches; also, an instance of this; a stitch used for this purpose.
| 1541 Copland Galyen's Terap. 2 G ij, Yf there be daunger of rottennes in the bone, or where sutares [sic] behoueth. 1597 A. M. tr. Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. 15/1 This suture is done with a waxed threde. 1617 Middleton & Rowley Fair Quarrel v. i, I closed the lips on't [sc. the wound] with bandages and sutures. 1651 Wittie tr. Primrose's Pop. Err. i. viii. 30 Simple wounds, for which union alone is sufficient without a suture. 1754–64 Smellie Midwif. I. 379 The cutis and muscles only should be taken up in the Suture. 1803 Med. Jrnl. IX. 165 Two successful operations of the royal suture. 1804 Abernethy Surg. Obs. i. 36 The edges of the wound were brought together by one suture. 1879 St. George's Hosp. Rep. IX. 447 The abdominal wound was closed by silver sutures. 1887 L. Oliphant Episodes (1888) 204 My right arm was bandaged to my side, so as not to open the sutures. |
| attrib. 1870 Daily News 9 Sept. 6 Plenty of suture needles. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech. 2465 Suture-instruments..are..useful in..operations requiring accurate suture adjustments. |
b. gen. Sewing, stitching; also, a stitch or seam;
† transf. adhesion;
fig. union, now chiefly the union of the parts or sections of a literary composition, or a point at which it is made.
| 1600 Holland Livy xxxviii. 1001 Three leather thongs hardened and made stiffe with many sutures and seames. 1603 Florio Montaigne i. xx. (1632) 44 The narrow suture of the spirit and the body. 1656 J. Smith Pract. Physick 358 Suture with glew is convenient. 1791 Cowper Odyss. xxii. 214 Till age Had loosed the sutures of its bands. 1883 Ld. Coleridge in E. H. Coleridge Life (1904) II. xi. 335 Here and there..we detect the sutures [in the æneid], but how seldom! 1887 Dowden Shelley I. ix. 434 We are whole at that age and have not experienced the remarkable effects of stitches and sutures. 1891 Nation (N.Y.) 5 Nov. 360 Page after page, and paragraph after paragraph are extracted from the ‘History’ to be reset in these ‘Sketches’,..sometimes with slight modifications of phrase which hardly serve to hide the seams of the literary suture. |
2. a. Anat. The junction of two bones forming an immovable articulation; the line of such junction;
esp. any of the serrated articulations of the skull.
| 1578 Banister Hist. Man iv. 45 b, The extreme Suture of the iugall bone. 1615 Crooke Body of Man 498 The Sagittall suture or seame. a 1631 Donne Crosse 56 As the braine through bony walls doth vent By sutures, which a Crosses forme present. 1650 Bulwer Anthropomet. Pref., Thy Front towards the Coronal Suture rose. 1696 Aubrey Misc. (1857) Introd. p. xi, At eight years old I had an issue (natural) in the coronall sutor of my head. c 1720 W. Gibson Farrier's Guide i. vi. (1738) 78 The true Sutures are three in Number, and proper to the Skull only. 1817 Coleridge Zapolya Prelude i, The unclosed sutures of an infant's skull. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. vi. (1873) 158 Sutures occur in the skulls of young birds and reptiles. 1871 ― Desc. Man I. iv. 124 In man the frontal bone consists of a single piece, but in the embryo and in children,..it consists of two pieces separated by a distinct suture. |
† b. (See
quots.)
Obs.| 1656 Blount Glossogr., Suture,..the line under the yard of a man. 1688 Holme Armoury ii. xvii. 381/2 The Suture of the Pallate, is the Seam in the bone in the Roofe of the Mouth. 1725 Fam. Dict. s.v. Lithotomy, The Suture of the Perinæum. |
3. Zool. and
Bot. The junction, or (more
freq.) the line of junction, of contiguous parts,
e.g. the line of closure of the valves of a shell, the seam where the carpels of a pericarp join, the conflux of the inner margins of elytra, the outline of the septa of the shell of a tetrabranchiate cephalopod.
| 1677 Plot Oxfordsh. 108 The whole body of the stone [i.e. fossil shell]..divided by Sutures,..resembing the leaves of Oak. 1695 Woodward Nat. Hist. Earth (1723) 24 The same Sutures,..whether within or without the Shell. 1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. i. vi. (1765) 13 The Seeds are fastened along both the Sutures or Joinings of the Valves. 1769 Pennant Brit. Zool. III. 1 Body covered either with a shell or strong hide, divided by sutures. 1785 Martyn Lett. Bot. iii. (1794) 40 The silique opens from the bottom upwards by both sutures. 1826 Kirby & Sp. Entomol. IV. xlvii. 368 The straight suture by which the elytra are united. 1851 Woodward Mollusca i. 101 The line or channel formed by the junction of the whirls is termed the suture. 1880 A. Gray Struct. Bot. vi. §6. (ed. 6) 252 For the discharge of the pollen, the cells..open..by a line or chink,..the suture or line of dehiscence. |
| attrib. 1894 Geol. Mag. Oct. 435 The shell is somewhat distorted... Its suture-line cannot be made out. |
4. Geol. In plate tectonics, the junction or line of junction formed by the collision of two lithospheric plates.
| 1971 Nature 18 June 418/2 Within the present continents these are several linear belts of distinctive oceanic and geosynclinal deposits which apparently mark the boundaries (sutures) between once separated continents. 1977 Sci. Amer. Apr. 32/1 Most of the sutures in Eurasia appear to be older than 200 million years. |
Hence
ˈsuture v. trans., (
a) to secure with a suture, to sew or stitch
up; (
b)
Geol., to join (lithospheric plates) by means of a suture; often
const. together;
ˈsutured ppl. a., sewn together;
ˈsuturing vbl. n.| 1777 Pennant Brit. Zool. IV. 57 Echinus. Body covered with a sutured crust. 1878 Masque Poets 215 From the first skiff of sutured skins or bark To the three-decker with its thundering guns, The thing developed. 1886 Amer. Jrnl. Philol. July 233 According to Fick, the present text of the Iliad..is sutured together out of the following pieces. 1890 Retrospect Med. CII. 306 By suturing the serous surfaces over the anterior margins of the plates by a few stitches of the continued suture. Ibid. 314 The suturing of the mucosa..is one of the steps of the procedure. 1904 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 24 Dec. 1682/2 In suturing up the wound I have again followed Kelly. 1970 Nature 14 Nov. 659/1 If..continents are being joined, their suturing prevents further relative motion between the plates on which they ride. 1976 B. E. Hobbs et al. Outl. Structural Geol. x. 468 Depositional sites that are subsequently ‘sutured’ together by convergent plate motion. 1977 Sci. Amer. Apr. 32/1 When two continents collide, they suture themselves together to form a larger continent. 1979 Nature 6 Dec. 608/2 The act of complete suturing could trap basaltic crust and supracrustals between the two masses. |