Definition of "delamination" []

• The act of splitting or separating a laminate into layers. (noun)
• Embryology The splitting of the blastoderm into two layers of cells to form a gastrula. (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.

• "It was also shown that what is called delamination -- the rise of the two primary germinal layers by the folding of the surface of the blastoderm (for instance, in the Geryonidae and other medusae) -- was a secondary formation, due to cenogenetic variations from the original invagination of the blastula."
• "[14] In most vertebrated animals this process of gastrulation has been more or less superseded by another, which is called delamination; but it scarcely seems necessary for our present purposes to describe the latter."
• "Rival Boeing said this month it found a process called "delamination" on part of the rear fuselage of its carbon-composite 787 Dreamliner, somewhat akin to the cracking on a metal structure, but harder to detect."