▪ I. fissure, n.
(ˈfɪsjʊə(r), ˈfɪʃə(r))
[a. F. fissure, ad. L. fissūra, f. findĕre (pa. pple. fissus) to cleave.]
1. a. A cleft or opening (usually rather long and narrow) made by splitting, cleaving, or separation of parts; ‘a narrow chasm where a breach has been made’ (J.).
| 1606 R. Cawdrey Table Alph., Fissure, rift, cleft, or pertition. 1677 Plot Oxfordsh. 235 Of but few gallons of water forced through a narrow Fissure, he could raise a mist in his Garden. 1695 Woodward Nat. Hist. Earth (1723) 6 Those Strata were divided by parallel Fissures. 1730–46 Thomson Autumn 811, I see..The gaping fissures to receive the rains. 1814 Cary Dante, Inf. xiv. 107 Each part, except the gold, is rent throughout; And from the fissure tears distil. 1856 Stanley Sinai & Pal. ii. (1858) 112 The vast fissure of the Jordan valley. |
b. fig. (of non-material cleavage).
| 1876 T. Le M. Douse Grimm's L. §61. 150 A dialectic fissure, as it were, was originated. 1890 Spectator 5 July, They..were..divided by too deep a social fissure from the Indians whom they were expected to convert. |
2. spec. a. Path. A narrow solution of continuity produced by injury or by ulceration; also, an incomplete fracture of a bone, without separation of parts. (Syd. Soc. Lex.)
| c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 270 Whanne þe bowels falliþ adoun þoruȝ a fissure .i. a brekynge. 1601 Holland Pliny xxi. xx, [It cureth] the Fissures in the seat. 1676 Wiseman Surg. v. ix. 379 By a Fall or Blow the Scull may be fissured or fractured..this Fracture or Fissure may be under the Contusion, or [etc.]. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Fissure..In Surgery a kind of Fracture, or breaking of a Bone, that happens in the length of it. 1767 Gooch Treat. Wounds I. 249 The best Authors..divide the injuries, of which the skull is susceptible, into five kinds, as a fissure, a fracture, [etc.]. 1876 Duhring Dis. Skin 49 Fissures are linear wounds having their seat in the epidermis or corium. |
b. Anat., Bot. etc. A natural cleft or opening in an organ or part; e.g. one of the sulci or depressions which separate the convolutions of the brain.
| 1656–74 Blount Glossogr., Fissure, a cleft, a division, a parted leaf. 1713 Derham Phys.-Theol. iv. ii. 101 In other Animals the Fissure of the Pupil is erect. 1797 M. Baillie Morb. Anat. (1807) 184 The mouth of the earth worm consists of a small longitudinal fissure. 1871 Darwin Desc. Man I. i. 10 Bischoff..admits that every chief fissure and fold in the brain of man has its analogy in that of the orang. 1884 Syd. Soc. Lex., Fissure..in Botany, the line of cleavage of seed vessels and anthers, and the clefts of a divided leaf. |
c. Her. A diminutive of the bend sinister, being one fourth of its width. † Also, a riband, or eighth part of a bend (obs.).
| 1486 Bk. St. Albans, Her. E vij b, Thys fyssure is calde a staffe, and in french it is cald a baston. 1562 Leigh Armorie 110 b, A ribande..conteineth in bredeth, the eight parte of y⊇ bende..This ys also called a Fissure. 1610 J. Guillim Heraldry ii. v. (1611) 53 It is commonly called a Fissure..in that it cuts or rents the coat armour in twaine. 1828–40 Berry Encycl. Herald. I, Fissure is the fourth part of the bend sinister and by some called a staff. |
3. The action of cleaving or splitting asunder; the state of being cleft; cleavage.
| 1633 T. Adams Exp. 2nd Peter i. 11 226 The apertion of heaven..in these places signifies..a visible fissure of heaven. 1853 Kane Grinnell Exp. xxviii. (1856) 232 On striking the surface with a walking-pole..lines of fissure radiated from the point of impact. |
4. attrib. and Comb., as fissure theory; fissure claim, -eruption, -needle, vein (see quots.).
| 1871 Tyndall Fragm. Sc. (1879) I. ix. 281, I had heard the Via Mala cited as a conspicuous illustration of the fissure theory. 1874 Knight Dict. Mech., Fissure-needle, a spiral needle for catching together the gaping lips of wounds. 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss, Fissure-vein, a fissure in the earth's crust filled with mineral. 1882 A. Geikie Text-Bk. Geol. iii. 198 In many parts of the earth..there have been periods..when the crust was rent into innumerable fissures over areas thousands of square miles in extent, and when the molten rock..welled out from the vents, and flooded enormous tracts of country... Of these ‘fissure-eruptions’,..no examples have occurred within the times of human history, unless some of the lava-floods of Iceland can be so regarded. 1886 York Herald 4 Aug. 1/4 As usual in such fissure veins..as the workings increase in depth the lode will considerably increase both in thickness and richness. 1894 Westm. Gaz. 4 May 6/1 The reef..is reported..to be a true fissure claim. |
▪ II. fissure, v.
(ˈfɪʃjʊə(r))
[f. prec. n.]
1. trans. To make a fissure or fissures in; to cleave, split.
| 1656 Ridgley Pract. Physic 173 When the inward place is Fissured, the outward remaining unhurt. 1676 [see fissure n. 2]. 1841 Lever C. O'Malley xlvii, The French cannon had fissured the building from top to bottom. 1863 Lyell Antiq. Man xi. (ed. 3) 202 By that convulsion the region around Natchez was..much fissured. 1869 Phillips Vesuv. viii. 237 The strata would be fissured and displaced. |
2. intr. To break into, or open in, fissures; to become cleft or split.
Hence ˈfissuring vbl. n. and ppl. a.
| 1830 Lyell Princ. Geol. I. 419 The rending and fissuring of the ground. 1859 Todd Cycl. Anat. V. 49/2 The process of fissuring or segmentation. 1862 G. P. Scrope Volcanos 47 The fissuring effect upon solid rocks. |