parting

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or process of separating or dividing.
2. n. The state of being separated or divided.
3. n. A departure or leave-taking.
4. adj. Given, received, or done on departing or separating: a parting gift.
5. idiom. parting of the ways A point of divergence, especially one of great moment.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of separating Or dividing; separation. Departure; leave-taking; separation from friends.
2. n. Agoing hence; death: sometimes hence-parting.
3. n. In paper-making, the operation of separating the damp sheets.
4. n. In metallurgy, the separation of gold and silver from each other by means of an acid. Both nitric and sulphuric acids are used for this purpose, the latter more generally; but parting by nitric acid is a process which has been in use for many centuries.
5. n. In mineralogy, a separation of a mineral into layers due not to cleavage, but to some other cause, as the presence of thin lamellæ formed by twinning, as, for example, in pyroxene, titanite, etc.
6. n. In comb-making, a method by which, in order to save material, two combs are cut from a single piece of shell but little wider than a single comb. The cutter used has a vertical motion upon the blank, which has an intermittent feed beneath it, and receives a succession of cuts, the teeth of one comb being cut from the interdental spaces of the other.
7. n. A point or place of separation or division.
8. n. In geology, a thin seam of clay or shale separating the thicker beds of rock.
9. n. In founding: The meeting surfaces of the sand rammed up in the cope and in the drag. Parting-sand.
10. n. The division of the hair on the head in dressing it.
11. n. That which parts or divides.
12. n. Share; fellowship; participation.

Wiktionary

1. n. The act of parting or dividing; the state of being parted; division; separation.
2. n. A farewell, the act of departing politely.
3. n. UK The dividing line formed by combing the hair in different directions; part (US)
4. n. founding The surface of the sand of one section of a mould where it meets that of another section.
5. n. chemistry The separation and determination of alloys; especially, the separation, as by acids, of gold from silver in the assay button.
6. n. geology A joint or fissure, as in a coal seam.
7. n. nautical The breaking, as of a cable, by violence.
8. n. mineralogy Lamellar separation in a crystallized mineral, due to some other cause than cleavage, as to the presence of twinning lamellae.
9. v. present participle of part.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Serving to part; dividing; separating.
2. adj. Given when departing
3. adj. Departing.
4. adj. Admitting of being parted; partible.
5. n. The act of parting or dividing; the state of being parted; division; separation.
6. n. A separation; a leave-taking.
7. n. A surface or line of separation where a division occurs.
8. n. (Founding) The surface of the sand of one section of a mold where it meets that of another section.
9. n. (Chem.) The separation and determination of alloys; esp., the separation, as by acids, of gold from silver in the assay button.
10. n. (Geol.) A joint or fissure, as in a coal seam.
11. n. (Naut.) The breaking, as of a cable, by violence.
12. n. (Min.) Lamellar separation in a crystallized mineral, due to some other cause than cleavage, as to the presence of twinning lamellæ.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a line of scalp that can be seen when sections of hair are combed in opposite directions
2. n. the act of departing politely