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. 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., trans. 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, trans. 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. W. MacCormac, in Daily News, 9 Sept., 6/5. 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. 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. Ibid. (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. R. 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,… resembling 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.
Hence Suture v. trans., to secure with a suture, to sew or stitch up; Sutured ppl. a., sewn together; Suturing vbl. sb.
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.
