fissiparous

comparative more fissiparous · superlative most fissiparous

1. Factious, tending to break into pieces.

   There is no panacea. Iraq is a destroyed and fissiparous country.

   2005 December, Nir Rosen, “If America Left Iraq”, in The Atlantic

   3 more examples

   That nation, inescapably, is Germany, the largest, richest, most important, perhaps most admirable and certainly most pivotal nation in the European Union, the nation around which a flourishing Europe will always centre and the nation upon which a fissiparous Europe always risks foundering.

   2003 December 13, “Leading the new Europe”, in The Guardian

   Like empires, world orders grow old, fissiparous, complacent and grumpy — despite the Champagne, the thrill is gone.

   2015 January 1, Steven Erlanger, “New Year, Old Problems”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   The consequences are legion: emboldened far rights, poisoned public spheres, fissiparous loyalties and a political future defined more by helplessness than by choice.

   2026 February 7, Anton Jäger, “They Used to Rule the West. Now They’re Dying.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: unstable

2. Causing division or fragmenting something.

   fissiparous tendencies

   4 more examples

   Was he impressed with the cohesion of the Christians among themselves, and by the contrast thus offered to the fissiparous tendencies of his feudal polity?

   1901, H. F. B. Lynch, Armenia, Travels and Studies, volume 1

   The sea was such a link in the case of Greece and her city colonies enabling her (no hostile power having command of the Mediterranean) to maintain connexion with her foreign colonies, in spite of the fissiparous influence of her physical configuration on the mainland.

   1907, George Curzon, Frontiers

   The term, which means having the quality of reproducing by splitting, was first used in the national context by the founding Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, who warned that “fissiparous tendencies” might someday shatter the Indian union.

   1980 August 9, Michael T. Kaufmans, quoting Jawaharlal Nehru, “Tribal Revolts in India Revive Old Fears of Breakup”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   After ­spending 1,000 words establishing that he's the only person in Britain who refers to ­Massive Attack as "the Massives", he ­finally let fly with the what-did-you-have-for-lunch-mate-dictionary-­pudding? stuff he had presumably been employed for: "The Massives have always had a certain fissiparous approach to their work as an ensemble" and so on.

   2010 February 4, Alexis Petridis, quoting Will Self, “Massive Attack: Heligoland”, in The Guardian

   Synonyms: divisive, fragmenting

3. biologyOf cells that reproduce through fission, splitting into two.

   Reproduction may be divided into two main classes, namely, sexual and asexual. The latter is effected in many ways—by the formation of buds of various kinds, and by fissiparous generation, that is by spontaneous or artificial division.

   1868, Charles Darwin, “Provisional Hypothesis of Pangenesis”, in The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. […], volume II, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, part I, page 358