Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A line or place at which two things are joined.
  • noun A tract of nerve fibers passing from one side to the other of the spinal cord or brain.
  • noun The point or surface where two parts, such as the eyelids, lips, or cardiac valves, join or form a connection.
  • noun Botany The surface or place along which two structures, such as carpels, are joined.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A joint, seam, suture, or closure; the place where two bodies or parts of a body meet or unite.
  • noun That which joins or connects.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A joint, seam, or closure; the place where two bodies, or parts of a body, meet and unite; an interstice, cleft, or juncture.
  • noun The point of union between two parts, as the angles of the lips or eyelids, the mandibles of a bird, etc.
  • noun A collection of fibers connecting parts of the brain or spinal marrow; a chiasma.
  • noun (Bot.) The line of junction or cohering face of two carpels, as in the parsnip, caraway, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun the place where two things are joined, especially the line where two parts of an anatomical structure join

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a bundle of nerve fibers passing from one side to the other of the brain or spinal cord

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Latin commissūra, from commissus, past participle of committere, to join; see commit.]

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