SEVERANCE

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does severance mean? 

• SEVERANCE (noun)
  The noun SEVERANCE has 2 senses:

1. a personal or social separation (as between opposing factions)

2. the act of severing

  Familiarity information: SEVERANCE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SEVERANCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A personal or social separation (as between opposing factions)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

breach; break; falling out; rift; rupture; severance

Context example:

they hoped to avoid a break in relations

Hypernyms ("severance" is a kind of...):

breakup; detachment; separation (coming apart)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "severance"):

schism (the formal separation of a church into two churches or the withdrawal of one group over doctrinal differences)

Derivation:

sever (set or keep apart)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The act of severing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

severance; severing

Hypernyms ("severance" is a kind of...):

cut; cutting (the act of cutting something into parts)

Derivation:

sever (cut off from a whole)

 Context examples 

I received one morning by the post, the following letter, dated Canterbury, and addressed to me at Doctor's Commons; which I read with some surprise: Circumstances beyond my individual control have, for a considerable lapse of time, effected a severance of that intimacy which, in the limited opportunities conceded to me in the midst of my professional duties, of contemplating the scenes and events of the past, tinged by the prismatic hues of memory, has ever afforded me, as it ever must continue to afford, gratifying emotions of no common description.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)