Fission

Webster's Dictionary of the English Language

·noun A cleaving, splitting, or breaking up into parts.

II. Fission ·noun A process by which certain coral polyps, echinoderms, annelids, ·etc., spontaneously subdivide, each individual thus forming two or more new ones. ·see Strobilation.

III. Fission ·noun A method of asexual reproduction among the lowest (unicellular) organisms by means of a process of self-division, consisting of gradual division or cleavage of the into two parts, each of which then becomes a separate and independent organisms; as when a cell in an animal or plant, or its germ, undergoes a spontaneous division, and the parts again subdivide. ·see Segmentation, and Cell division, under Division.