fissio

Forms

fissiō f (genitive fissiōnis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin findō (“to split, cleave”) + -tiō.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces the verb to a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *bʰi-n-d- (“to cleave”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero uses it once, in De natura deorum, of breaking up the clods when the earth is ploughed.^[2][5][3]

Semantic evolution

It remained rare.^[3] Firmicus Maternus uses it for a cleft, the split in the hoof of Taurus in an astrological passage.^[3][6] English borrowed it as fission in 1819 for the division of a cell; the sense in nuclear physics dates from 1939.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of breaking clods.^[2][5][8]
• 343/350 AD – Firmicus Maternus uses it for the cleft of a hoof.^[3][8]
• 1819 – Borrowed into English as fission, the division of a cell.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The action of splitting or cleaving.^[2][5]
2. (Late Latin) A cleft.^[3][6]

Related words

• fissūra
• fissum
• English fission

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de