the.com/fissure
a crack that mistakes itself for permanent until the whole thing gives way.
means A long, narrow crack or split in a surface — rock, skin, or anything solid enough to break.
from From Latin fissura, a splitting or cleft, from the verb findere, 'to split' (whose past participle fissus also gives us 'fission'). The same root runs back through ancient kin meaning 'to cleave,' and surfaces in English in the 14th–15th centuries, first in medical and geological talk of things gone visibly apart.
- anal version
- the most-Googled medical fissure, sadly
- earth's mouths
- volcanic fissures erupt in lines, not single cones
- brain folds
- fissures divide your brain into working regions
- glacier killers
- hidden crevasses swallow climbers whole, no warning
- word root
- from Latin findere, meaning to split
east african rift valley — massive geological fissure extending 6,000 km from syria to mozambique, continuously splitting the african continent
mid-ocean ridge system — underwater fissure network 65,000 km long where tectonic plates separate and new oceanic crust forms
holuhraun eruption 2014 — icelandic volcanic fissure eruption that released lava from a 1.6 km long crack near eyjafjallajökull