Definition of "cleavage" []

• The act of splitting or cleaving. (noun)
• The state of being split or cleft; a fissure or division. (noun)
• Mineralogy The splitting or tendency to split of a crystallized substance along definite crystalline planes, yielding smooth surfaces. (noun)
• Embryology The series of mitotic cell divisions that produces a blastula from a fertilized ovum. It is the basis of the multicellularity of complex organisms. Also called segmentation. (noun)
• Embryology Any single cell division in such a series. (noun)

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.

• "Apparently, the British word for "cleavage" is the same as the American word for "pre-pubescent""
• "Turn we now to the consideration of some other phenomena to which the term cleavage may be applied."
• "I also agree that a woman who doesn't need show off all that cleavage is much more attracting than one who does."