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  1. dehiscence love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Botany The spontaneous opening at maturity of a plant structure, such as a fruit, anther, or sporangium, to release its contents.
  2. n. Medicine A rupture or splitting open, as of a surgical wound, or of an organ or structure to discharge its contents.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A gaping.
  2. n. 2. In botany, the opening of a pericarp for the discharge of the seeds, or of an anther to set free the pollen. Regular dehiscence in the case of capsules is septicidal, through the septa, or loculicidal, directly into the cells. It is also said to be septifragal when the valves break away from the septa. Irregular dehiscence may be transverse, circumscissile, etc., or variously lacerated. The dehiscence of an anther is by longitudinal slits, valves, pores, etc.
  3. n. In pathol., a bursting open.

Wiktionary

  1. n. botany Opening of an organ by its own means (such as an anther or a seed pod) to release its contents.
  2. n. medicine A rupture, as with a surgical wound opening up, often with a flow of serous fluid.
  3. n. rare Opening, gaping, in a general sense.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. The act of gaping.
  2. n. (Biol.) A gaping or bursting open along a definite line of attachment or suture, without tearing, as in the opening of pods, or the bursting of capsules at maturity so as to emit seeds, etc.; also, the bursting open of follicles, as in the ovaries of animals, for the expulsion of their contents.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. (biology) release of material by splitting open of an organ or tissue; the natural bursting open at maturity of a fruit or other reproductive body to release seeds or spores or the bursting open of a surgically closed wound

Etymologies

  1. From Modern Latin dehiscentia (in Linnaeus), from Latin dehiscentem, present participle of dehiscere. (Wiktionary)

Examples

  • “You will find nothing but blunder and embarrassment result from any endeavour to enter into further particulars, such as "the relation of the dissepiment with respect to the valves of the capsule," etc., etc., since "in the various species of Veronica almost every kind of dehiscence may be observed" (C. under V. perfoliata, 1936, an”

    Proserpina, Volume 2 Studies Of Wayside Flowers

  • “Maggie has a history of her abdominal surgical wound breaking wide-the-frack open -- technical term: dehiscence -- and taking months, infected, pain-filled, pus-dripping agonizing months to heal. * shudders* Throughout the last two weeks, much much more than dying, dehiscence and cancer have been Maggie's major fears.”

    One Week After Emergency Abdominal Surgery Maggie Jochild Is Still In Intensive Care

  • “It was the doctor's assistant who explained I had a skin condition called dehiscence, which means wounds tend to not stay closed.”

    Archive 2009-06-01

  • “Each time that Heidegger refers the question of being to the question of the proper-ty (propre), of propriate, of propriation (eigen, eignen, ereignen, Ereignis especially) this dehiscence bursts forth anew.”

    enowning

  • “The surgeon called it wound dehiscence and said it was common in people who keloided with scars.”

    MY KNEES -- PART THREE, AFTER THE SURGERY

  • “I told her about my wound dehiscence issue, and she paled a little.”

    MY KNEES -- PART THREE, AFTER THE SURGERY

  • “You can deal with trying to get him onto oral meds later, but your goal right now is to get his sugars under control so he doesn't get a wound dehiscence with a roaring post-op skin infection or peritonitis.”

    Oil and Water (Sometimes): Guidelines and Real Life

  • “We should be helpful and sympathetic, but we should not ignore the fact that the obese patient who just has had surgery is at a higher risk for abdominal dehiscence because fat does not hold sutures as well.”

    ‘You’re Fat And Won’t Get Laid!’ - Acceptible Medical Commentary?

  • “I was diagnosed March 2004, June 2004 - Meniere's Disease and via ultra sophisticated xray of my temporal lobes showed each ear had a dehiscence.”

    Mind Hacks: "Eyeballs sound like creaking doors"

  • “The pollen sacs of the nettles were ripe, and every now and then the vigil would be enlivened by the dehiscence of these, the bursting of the sacs sounding exactly like the crack of a pistol, and the pollen grains as big as buckshot pattered all about them.”

    The Food of the Gods and how it came to Earth

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hypernyms (1)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. organic phenomenon

reverse dictionary (23)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. septicidal
  2. septifragal
  3. marginicidal
  4. dehisce
  1. dehiscent
  2. seed-vessel
  3. apicular
  4. leguminar
  1. lip-cell
  2. suture
  3. stoma
  4. wahoo
  1. circumscissile
  2. delamination
  3. fissure
  4. harpullia
  1. kiggelaria
  2. papaver
  3. puya
  4. pyxis
  1. replum
  2. sutural
  3. valve

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  • sratsrat During a rainy winter, I witness the dehiscence of oak root fungus beneath my trees. I fear that it portends a doom of some sort. Feb 3, 2009

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‘dehiscence’ has been looked up 1903 times, loved by 2 people, added to 17 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 18.