suture

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The process of joining two surfaces or edges together along a line by or as if by sewing.
2. n. The material, such as thread, gut, or wire, that is used in this procedure.
3. n. The line or stitch so formed.
4. n. Medicine The fine thread or other material used surgically to close a wound or join tissues.
5. n. Medicine The stitch so formed.
6. n. Anatomy The line of junction or an immovable joint between two bones, especially of the skull.
7. n. Biology A seamlike joint or line of articulation, such as the line of dehiscence in a dry fruit or the spiral seam marking the junction of whorls of a gastropod shell.
8. v. To join by means of sutures or a suture.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of sewing; a sewing together, or joining along a line or seam; hence (rarely), the state of being connected; connectedness.
2. n. A line of joining, uniting, or closure as if by sewing, stitching, or knitting together; a seam; a raphe. ; . Specifically— In anatomy, a linear synarthrosis or immovable articulation, especially of the bones of the skull. In man and other mammals all the cranial bones excepting the lower jaw are united by joints technically called sutures, and in all vertebrates which have bony skulls the sutures are numerous, uniting most of the bones. Sutures are classified or described in various ways: by the mode of apposition of the united surfaces or edges of the bones, as the squamous suture, the harmonic suture, the dentate, the limbate, etc. (see synarthrosis)
3. n. In botany, the seam or line of junction between two edges, as between the component carpels of a pericarp, there commonly marking the line of dehiscence.
4. n. In surgery: The uniting of the lips or edges of a wound by stitching or stitches, or in some equivalent manner.
5. n. One of the stitches or fastenings used to make such a union of the lips of a wound.
6. n. In entomology, same as clypeal suture.
7. To unite in a suture or with sutures; sew up, or sew together; connect as if united by a suture.

Wiktionary

1. n. Seam formed by sewing two edges (especially of skin) together.
2. n. Thread used to sew two edges (especially of skin) together; stitch.
3. n. geology An area where separate terranes join together along a major fault.
4. n. anatomy A type of fibrous joint bound together by Sharpey's fibres which only occurs in the skull.
5. v. transitive to sew up or join by means of a suture

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of sewing; also, the line along which two things or parts are sewed together, or are united so as to form a seam, or that which resembles a seam.
2. n. The uniting of the parts of a wound by stitching.
3. n. The stitch by which the parts are united.
4. n. (Anat.) The line of union, or seam, in an immovable articulation, like those between the bones of the skull; also, such an articulation itself; synarthrosis. See Harmonic suture, under Harmonic.
5. n. The line, or seam, formed by the union of two margins in any part of a plant.
6. n. A line resembling a seam.
7. n. The line at which the elytra of a beetle meet and are sometimes confluent.
8. n. A seam, or impressed line, as between the segments of a crustacean, or between the whorls of a univalve shell.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. join with a suture
2. n. a seam used in surgery
3. n. an immovable joint (especially between the bones of the skull)
4. n. thread of catgut or silk or wire used by surgeons to stitch tissues together