I. ˈfishə(r) noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin fissura, from fissus (past participle of findere to split) + -ura -ure — more at bite
1.
a. : a narrow opening, chasm, or crack of some length and considerable depth usually occurring from some breaking, rending, or parting : cleavage
one of those abrupt fissures with which the earth in the Southwest is riddled — Willa Cather
b.
(1) : a usually profound disagreement or discord portending or making for total disruption or breakup : division
the serious fissure in the Labor Party — Felix Morley
(2) : a serious weakness or flaw
the traders of the English colonies were eating their way into the French colonial system, exploring its fissures systematically — O.G.Creighton
2.
[New Latin fissura, from Latin]
a. : one of the clefts separating the lobes of the liver and lodging peritoneal folds, ligaments, blood and lymph vessels, and other structures — called also fossa
b. : any of certain clefts between bones or parts of bones in the skull
c. : any of the deep clefts of the brain ; especially : one of those collocated with elevations in the walls of the ventricles
the dentate fissure
— compare sulcus
d. : the cleft in the anterior or ventral part of the spinal cord ; also : the posterior septum of the spinal cord
3. : a slit in tissue usually at the junction of skin and mucous membrane
fissure of the lip
anal fissure
Synonyms: see crack
II. verb
( fissured ; fissured ; fissuring -sh(ə)riŋ ; fissures )
transitive verb
: to break into fissures : cleave
sudden canyons deeply fissured the earth — Dan Wickenden
intransitive verb
: crack , fracture , divide
the main castes fissured into scores, even hundreds, of subcastes — J.B.Noss