interstice

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interstice

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From late Middle English interstice, from Old French interstice or directly from Latin interstitium (“a space between, gap, interval”), ultimately from intersistere (“to stand in between, to stop in the middle”), from inter- +‎ sistere (“to stand, to stop”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈtɜː.stɪs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈtɚ.stəs/

interstice (plural interstices)

1. A small opening or space between objects, especially adjacent objects or objects set closely together, such as between cords in a rope, components of a multiconductor electrical cable or atoms in a crystal.
   • 1887, Osborne Reynolds, Experiments showing Dilatancy, in Notices of the Proceedings, Volume 11, Royal Institution of Great Britain, page 360,

     The tide leaves the sand, though apparently dry on the surface, with all its interstices perfectly full of water which is kept up to the surface of the sand by capillary attraction; at the same time the water is percolating through the sand from the sands above where the capillary action is not sufficient to hold the water. When the foot falls on this water-saturated sand it tends to change its shape, but it cannot do this without enlarging the interstices—without drawing in more water. This is a work of time, so that the foot is gone again before the sand has yielded.

2. (figurative) A fragment of space.
   • 2013 August 14, Simon Jenkins, “Gibraltar and the Falklands deny the logic of history”, in The Guardian‎, archived from the original on 10 August 2014:

     Relics of the British empire now mostly survive in the interstices of the global economy. They are the major winners from the fiscal haemorrhage that has resulted from financial globalisation.

3. An interval of time required by the Roman Catholic Church between the attainment of different degrees of an order.
4. (by extension) A small interval of time free to be spent on activities other than one's primary goal.

• For more quotations using this term, see Citations:interstice.

• (small opening or space between objects): chink, crack, cranny, crevice, fissure, gap, interstitial space, slit; see also Thesaurus:interspace or Thesaurus:hole

• intersticed

• “interstice”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E Smith, editors (1911), “interstice”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• Interstices (Catholicism) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Interstitial space (architecture) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

From Latin interstitium.

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.tɛʁ.stis/

interstice m (plural interstices)

1. (religion) interstice
2. gap, interval

• interstitiel

• “interstice”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.