Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Cleavage

Cleav′age (·āj), n. 1. The act of cleaving or splitting.

2. (Crystallog.) The quality possessed by many crystallized substances of splitting readily in one or more definite directions, in which the cohesive attraction is a minimum, affording more or less smooth surfaces; the direction of the dividing plane; a fragment obtained by cleaving, as of a diamond. See Parting.

3. (Geol.) Division into laminæ, like slate, with the lamination not necessarily parallel to the plane of deposition; — usually produced by pressure.

Basal cleavage, cleavage parallel to the base of a crystal, or to the plane of the lateral axes. — Cell cleavage (Biol.), multiplication of cells by fission. See Segmentation. — Cubic cleavage, cleavage parallel to the faces of a cube. — Diagonal cleavage, cleavage parallel to ta diagonal plane. — Egg clavage. (Biol.) See Segmentation. — Lateral cleavage, cleavage parallel to the lateral planes. — Octahedral, Dodecahedral, or Rhombohedral, cleavage, cleavage parallel to the faces of an octahedron, dodecahedron, or rhombohedron. — Prismatic cleavage, cleavage parallel to a vertical prism.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.