# parting

Pronunciation: say "PAR-ting" US /ˈpɑɹtɪŋ/, UK /ˈpɑːtɪŋ/

## Noun

1. A farewell; the act of leaving someone politely.
   - Simple: A goodbye said when people leave each other.
   - _The parting at the airport was brief but heartfelt._
   - _After years together, their final parting left both of them shaken._
2. The act of dividing or separating one thing from another.
   - Simple: The act of splitting something apart or pulling two things away from each other.
   - _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._
3. The line on the scalp where the hair is combed away in opposite directions. *(British)*
   - Simple: The line on the head where hair is combed in two different directions.
   - _She changed her parting from the left side to the center._
   - _A sharp parting gave his hairstyle a tidy, old-fashioned look._
4. The state or condition of being separated from another.
   - Simple: The condition of being apart from someone or something.
   - _The long parting tested their devotion to one another._
   - _He wrote letters throughout their parting, counting the days until they met again._
6. The breaking of a cable or rope under violent strain.
   - Simple: The sudden breaking of a rope or cable when too much force pulls on it.
   - _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._
7. A joint or fissure, such as one running through a coal seam.
   - Simple: A natural crack or split running through a layer of rock or coal.
   - _The parting in the coal seam made it easier to split the blocks free._
   - _Geologists mapped each parting that crossed the exposed cliff face._
8. The separation and analysis of alloys, especially the separation of gold from silver with acids in the assay button.
   - Simple: The process of separating the metals in an alloy, such as splitting gold from silver using acid.
   - _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._
9. The surface where the sand of one section of a casting mold meets that of another section.
   - Simple: The surface where the sand of one half of a casting mold meets the other half.
   - _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._
10. Thin, layered separation in a crystallized mineral caused by something other than cleavage, such as the presence of twinning lamellae.
   - Simple: A splitting of a crystal into thin layers, caused by something other than the way it naturally breaks.
   - _The parting in corundum often follows the planes of its twinning lamellae._
   - _Mineralogists distinguished the parting from true cleavage under the microscope._

## Verb

5. Present participle and gerund of part. — present participle and gerund of part
   - Simple: The -ing form of part. Use it after am, is, are, was or were, or to name the action.
   - _The crowd was parting to let the ambulance through._
   - _Parting from her mentor was the hardest decision of her career._

## Origin

Formed within English from "part" plus the suffix "-ing".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/parting (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).