Fissure has the following meanings in the field of medicine:

1. A deep space, groove, or slit on the surface of an organ. Fissures often divide an organ into parts.

2. To make a deep space, groove, or slit.

3. A lesion in the skin that looks like a crack.

4. A fault that is arranged in a line(s) that appears on the surface of bone during development of a part. For example, in dentistry, furrow means a break or fault that develops in the outermost covering of the exposed part of the teeth (known as enamel).

A fissure is deeper than a sulcus (a shallow groove), but sometimes the two words are used to refer to the same thing in the study of the structure of the human body. Fissure comes from the Latin word "fissura," meaning "cleft," which is a space or opening made by or as if by splitting.

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