ramification

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A development or consequence growing out of and sometimes complicating a problem, plan, or statement: the ramifications of a court decision.
2. n. The act or process of branching out or dividing into branches.
3. n. A subordinate part extending from a main body; a branch.
4. n. An arrangement of branches or branching parts.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act or process of ramifying, or the state of being ramified; a branching out; division into branches, or into divergent lines, courses, or parts, as of trees or plants, blood-vessels, a mountain-chain, a topic or subject, etc.
2. n. The manner or result of ramifying or branching; that which is ramified or divided into branches; a set of branches: as, the ramification of a coral; the ramifications of an artery or a nerve; the ramifications of the capillaries, or of nerves in an insect's wing. See cuts under Dendrocæla and embryology
3. n. In botany, the branching, or the manner of branching, of stems and roots.
4. n. One of the branches or divergent lines or parts into which anything is divided; a division or subdivision springing or derived from a main stem or source: as, the ramifications of a conspiracy; to pursue a subjeet in all its ramifications.
5. n. The production of figures resembling branches.

Wiktionary

1. n. A branching-out, the act or result of developing branches; specifically the divergence of the stem and limbs of a plant into smaller ones, or of similar developments in blood vessels, anatomical structures etc.
2. n. An offshoot of a decision, fact etc.; a consequence or implication, especially one which complicates a situation.
3. n. An arrangement of branches.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The process of branching, or the development of branches or offshoots from a stem; also, the mode of their arrangement.
2. n. A small branch or offshoot proceeding from a main stock or channel.
3. n. A division into principal and subordinate classes, heads, or departments; also, one of the subordinate parts.
4. n. The production of branchlike figures.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a development that complicates a situation
2. n. the act of branching out or dividing into branches
3. n. an arrangement of branching parts
4. n. a part of a forked or branching shape