Definition of "fission" []

• The act or process of splitting into parts. (noun)
• A nuclear reaction in which an atomic nucleus, especially a heavy nucleus such as an isotope of uranium, splits into fragments, usually two fragments of comparable mass, releasing from 100 million to several hundred million electron volts of energy. (noun)
• Biology An asexual reproductive process in which a unicellular organism divides into two or more independently maturing daughter cells. (noun)
• To cause (an atom) to undergo fission. (verb-transitive)
• To undergo fission. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "When an organ becomes divided it receives at the hands of descriptive botanists the appellations cleft, partite, or sect, according to the depth of the division; hence in considering the teratological instances of this nature, the term fission has suggested itself as an appropriate one to be applied to the subdivision of an habitually entire or undivided organ."
• "(1878-1968) interpreted the fission of uranium (the term fission is another Copenhagen contribution), in terms of the "liquid drop model.""
• "Once we secure all that, I hope that we can figure out how to use it in fission reactors to create electricity of be batteries for deep space probes (for where solar panels won't generate enough power)."