comminution

[kahm-uh-noo-shuhn]

noun

plural

comminution 

1. the breaking up of a larger piece of material into fragments; pulverization.

2. the breaking or fracturing of a bone into small pieces.

Example Sentences

The ostrich, that may be considered a connecting link between birds and quadrupeds, is gifted with powerful digestive organs, and is known to swallow stone, glass, and iron; but this faculty appears to be a gift of all-bounteous Providence, to enable the creature to digest the various substances it meets with when traversing burning deserts for hundreds of miles, when these hard bodies actually perform the function of teeth in the animal’s stomach, by aiding the comminution of its indigestible food.

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This causes friability, and facilitates the subsequent comminution.

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There are few operations of nature where the effect seems more disproportioned to the cause than in the comminution of rock in the channel of swift waters.

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Such are called clayey soils or clays, and are among the most valuable upon the surface of the earth, not because alumina is a component of vegetation, but because the elements associated with it, are all of them in a state of extreme comminution.

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After the sand-grains have been reduced to a certain size they retain films of water which separate them one from another, and act as cushions which prevent the grains from coming in contact, thus greatly retarding further comminution.

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