Dictionary

commissure en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈkɑm.əˌʃʊɹ/ (General-American)
• /ˈkɒm.ɪs.jʊə/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Latin commissura (“a joining or connecting together”), from commissus (passive perfect participle of committo (“to join, to connect”)) + -ura.

Meanings

1. The joint between two bones.
   • ...that round about the commissure of all our joints... 1734, William Stukeley, Of the Gout, J. Roberts, page 14:
2. A band of nerve tissue connecting the hemispheres of the brain, the two sides of the spinal cord, etc.
3. The line where the upper and lower lips or eyelids meet.
   • There is a third inner eyelid, highly developed and of beautiful mechanism: this is the nictitating membrane, or "winker" (nictito, I wink), a delicate, elastic, translucent, pearly-white fold of the conjunctiva. While the other lids move vertically and have a horizontal commissure, the winker sweeps horizontally or obliquely across the ball, from the side next the beak to the opposite. 1884, Elliott Coues, “§ 4.—An Introduction to the Anatomy of Birds.”, in Key to North American Birds. […], 2nd edition, Boston, Mass.: Estes and Lauriat, →OCLC, part II (General Ornithology), page 180:

Forms

Deriveds

medicommissure · commissural · postcommissure · commissurotomy · commissureless · anterior commissure · gray commissure · commissuroplasty · precommissure

Translations (5)

eo lipangulo (point where the upper and lower lips or eyelids join) · eo buŝangulo (point where the upper and lower lips or eyelids join) · es comisura (point where the upper and lower lips or eyelids join) · fr commissure (point where the upper and lower lips or eyelids join) · pt comissura (point where the upper and lower lips or eyelids join)