fissiparous

Adjective

fissiparous (comparative more fissiparous, superlative most fissiparous)

1. Factious, tending to break into pieces.
   • 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
   • There is no panacea. Iraq is a destroyed and fissiparous country.2005 December, Nir Rosen, “If America Left Iraq”, in The Atlantic

   Synonyms:

   unstable

2. Causing division or fragmenting something.
   • fissiparous tendencies
   • 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

   Synonyms:

   divisive, fragmenting

3. Of 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