parting

Pluralpartings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A farewell; the act of leaving someone politely.

   The parting at the airport was brief but heartfelt.

   After years together, their final parting left both of them shaken.

   Similarfarewell, goodbye, leave-taking, departure

   Oppositemeeting, reunion

   Note

   A word for leave-taking that carries feeling. Byron writes of "sudden partings" that press the life from young hearts, and in L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) the heroine cries at a "sorrowful parting from her loving comrades." The person left behind is introduced with from, and adjectives of grief gather around it. Where farewell leans toward the words said, parting leans toward the separation itself.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of dividing or separating one thing from another.

   The parting of the Red Sea is one of the most famous stories in the Bible.

   Geologists studied the slow parting of the two continents over millions of years.

   Similardivision, separation, splitting

   Note

   The noun of action, built simply from part and -ing, so it can name any act of dividing, whether of a sea or of two continents drifting apart. It counts a single event (a parting) and also names the process in general. When the focus shifts from the act to the condition that follows, the word moves to the state of being apart.

3. 3
   nounBritishcountable

   The line on the scalp where the hair is combed away in opposite directions.

   She changed her parting from the left side to the center.

   A sharp parting gave his hairstyle a tidy, old-fashioned look.

   Similarpart

   Note

   A British hairdressing word, with part as its synonym. You wear a parting on the left, on the right or in the center, and changing it can attract notice. Hannah Jane Parkinson, writing in 2019, recalls that David Cameron's switching of his parting was national news. Where British usage is not the norm, part is the safer choice.

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The state or condition of being separated from another.

   The long parting tested their devotion to one another.

   He wrote letters throughout their parting, counting the days until they met again.

   Similarseparation, absence

   Note

   Here the word names the condition that follows a separation, and it need not involve people at all. The King James Bible of 1611 speaks of "the parting of the way," a road splitting in two. K. Longbottom, writing in Railway Magazine in 1949, jokes about the "sad parting between enterprising shoppers and their purchases" at a customs post. Things can be parted from their owners as surely as friends from friends.

5. 5
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of part.

   The crowd was parting to let the ambulance through.

   Parting from her mentor was the hardest decision of her career.

   Note

   The -ing form of the verb does double duty: it is a participle in "the crowd was parting" and a gerund in "parting from a mentor." It also sits before nouns, as in Ian Prosser's "parting words," the last things said on leaving. That use ties it to the verb's sense of leaving someone's company and to the farewell noun. The same spelling serves every noun sense as well.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   The breaking of a cable or rope under violent strain.

   The parting of the mooring line during the storm set the vessel adrift.

   Crews feared a parting of the heavy chain as the load swung overhead.

   Similarsnapping, breaking, rupture

   Note

   Sailors speak of a line parting rather than snapping. The noun names a rope, cable or chain giving way when the strain on it exceeds its breaking strength, often under a sudden shock rather than a slow load. The verb works the same way without an object: the cable parted, and the ship swung free.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   A joint or fissure, such as one running through a coal seam.

   The parting in the coal seam made it easier to split the blocks free.

   Geologists mapped each parting that crossed the exposed cliff face.

   Similarfissure, joint

   Note

   Miners and geologists use the word for a plane of weakness within a stratum, a thin joint along which the rock comes apart readily. In a coal seam a parting can be useful, because it lets blocks be split free. It should not be confused with the mineralogist's parting, which runs through a single crystal rather than a bed of rock.

8. 8
   noununcountable

   The separation and analysis of alloys, especially the separation of gold from silver with acids in the assay button.

   The parting of the alloy revealed how much gold the sample contained.

   Nitric acid is the agent used in the parting of silver from gold.

   Similarseparation

   Note

   Assaying uses the word for one precise step. A button of gold and silver is treated with acid, classically nitric acid, which dissolves the silver and leaves the gold behind to be weighed. That weighing is why the process both separates and determines: the assayer learns how much gold the sample held.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   The surface where the sand of one section of a casting mold meets that of another section.

   Molten metal seeped along the parting and left a thin fin on the casting.

   The foundry worker dusted the parting to keep the two halves from sticking.

   Note

   A foundry term for the meeting face inside a sand mold, where the upper half (the cope) separates from the lower half (the drag). Founders watch it closely, because molten metal that creeps into it hardens as a thin fin, called flash, on the finished casting. Dusting the surface keeps the two halves from sticking together.

10. 10
    nouncountable or uncountable

    Thin, layered separation in a crystallized mineral caused by something other than cleavage, such as the presence of twinning lamellae.

    The parting in corundum often follows the planes of its twinning lamellae.

    Mineralogists distinguished the parting from true cleavage under the microscope.

    Note

    Mineralogists hold this apart from cleavage, though both are flat breaks along planes in a crystal. Cleavage follows the crystal's own structure and appears in every good specimen of a mineral. Parting follows planes of weakness such as twinning lamellae, so only some specimens show it. Telling the two apart is part of identifying a mineral.

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