Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The act of cutting off.
- noun Botany The shedding of leaves, flowers, or fruits following the formation of the abscission zone.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act of cutting off; severance; removal.
- noun The act of putting an end to; the act of annulling or abolishing. Sir T. Browne.
- noun Retrenchment.
- noun The sudden termination of a disease by death. Hooper, Med. Dict.
- noun In rhetoric, a figure of speech consisting in a sudden reticence, as if the words already spoken made sufficiently clear what the speaker would say if he were to finish the sentence: as, “He is a man of so much honor and candor, and such generosity—but I need say no more.”
- noun In astrology, the cutting off or preventing of anything shown by one aspect by means of another.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act or process of cutting off.
- noun The state of being cut off.
- noun (Rhet.) A figure of speech employed when a speaker having begun to say a thing stops abruptly: thus, “He is a man of so much honor and candor, and of such generosity -- but I need say no more.”
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The act or process of cutting off.
- noun rhetoric A figure of speech employed when a
speaker havingbegun to say a thing stopsabruptly
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the act of cutting something off
- noun shedding of flowers and leaves and fruit following formation of scar tissue in a plant
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Abscission = cutting off, separation Usage: when a flower or leaf separates naturally from the parent, this process is called abscission
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Abscission = cutting off, separation Usage: when a flower or leaf separates naturally from the parent, this process is called abscission 13.
Recently Uploaded Slideshows tkjainbkn 2010
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Too much warm weather, no local frost yet, the poor abscission sp? layers are getting mixed signals.
Tuesday roadkill report jhetley 2006
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He told me the abscission of the tongue was very common in the
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Roman catholic apostolic church, conserved in Calcata, were deserving of simple hyperduly or of the fourth degree of latria accorded to the abscission of such divine excrescences as hair and toenails.
Ulysses 2003
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On some trees, the petioles of last year's leaves were still attached to the dead twigs late the following summer, showing that the freeze occurred before the abscission layers had formed.
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It was apparent that this early freeze came before the abscission layers were formed in the leaf bases or growth matured.
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(I January, holiday of obligation to hear mass and abstain from unnecessary servile work) and the problem as to whether the divine prepuce, the carnal bridal ring of the holy Roman catholic apostolic church, conserved in Calcata, were deserving of simple hyperduly or of the fourth degree of latria accorded to the abscission of such divine excrescences as hair and toenails.
Ulysses James Joyce 1911
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-- Your sad predictions were well founded; the painful abscission has been made; we bore it at least with good sense and dignity.
Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. In Two Volumes. Volume II. John Knox Laughton 1872
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He told me the abscission of the tongue was very common in the
The Physiology of Taste 1755-1826 Brillat-Savarin 1790
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