[a. F. fissure, ad. L. fissūra, f. findĕre (pa. pple. fissus) to cleave.]
1. 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, 808.
| I see the leaning strata, artful rang’d; | |
| The gaping fissures to receive the rains, | |
| The melting snows, and ever-dripping fogs. |
1814. Cary, Dante, Inf., XIV. 107.
| Each part, except the gold, is rent throughout; | |
| And from the fissure tears distil, which join’d | |
| Penetrate to that cave. |
1856. Stanley, Sinai & Pal., ii. (1858), 113. The vast fissure of the Jordan valley, which must always have acted as a deep trench within the exterior rampart of the Desert and the eastern hills of the Trans-Jordanic tribes.
b. fig. (of non-material cleavage).
1876. T. Douse, Grimm’s Law, § 61, 150. A dialectic fissure, as it were, was originated by the debilitation, on the part of one section of the people, of a number of these pure k’s by an incipient sibilant or labial affection, as the case might be.
1890. Spectator, 5 July, 6/2. They received, it was said, too large salaries, lived in too comfortable a way, and were therefore divided by too deep a social fissure from the Indians whom they were expected to convert, and who undoubtedly are poor men.
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, and the Hairy scalp whole, and this Fracture or Fissure may be under the Contusion, or in some other Parts.
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, ancient and modern, divide the injuries, of which the skull is susceptible, into five kinds, as a fissure, a fracture, a contusion, a depression, and a cut.
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, and also capable of opening wide, and shutting up close.
1797. M. Baillie, Morb. Anat. (1807), 184. The mouth of the earth worm consists of a small longitudinal fissure, situated on the under surface of a small rounded head.
1871. Darwin, Desc. Man, I. i. 10–1. Bischoff, who is a hostile witness, admits that every chief fissure and fold in the brain of man has its analogy in that of the orang; but he adds that at no period of development do their brains perfectly agree; nor could this be expected, for otherwise their mental powers would have been the same.
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. Legh, Armorie, 110 b. A ribande geuls. This conteineth in bredeth, the eight parte of ye bende…. This ys also called a Fissure, and then it parteth the fielde into two colours.
1610. Guillim, Heraldry, II. v. (1611), 53. It is commonly called a Fissure (which is a cut or rent) … in that it cuts or rents the Coat-armour in twain, because the bastard is cut off from his fathers Inheritance.
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. I know that the apertion of heaven doth often mean a manifestation of God’s glorious power only; but in these places it signifies a visible fissure of heaven, that something might be seen far transcendant to the stars and planets.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxviii. (1856), 232. On striking the surface with a walking-pole, loud reports issued like a pistol-shot, and lines of fissure radiated from the point of impact.
4. attrib. and Comb., as fissure theory; fissure claim, -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—the profound chasm thus named, and through which the Hinter-Rhein now flows, could, it was alleged, be nothing else than a crack in the earth’s crust.
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.
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.
