1. To open in definite places, discharging seeds, pollen, or other contents, as the ripe capsules or pods of some plants.
2. To rupture or to break open, as a surgical wound: "A surgical wound may partially or completely dehisce after surgery, depending upon whether some or all of the layers of tissue come open."
3. To burst open, as capsules of plants; to gape.
4. Etymology: from Latin dehiscere, "to split open", and from hiscere, "to gape, to yawn"; from Latin hiare, "to yawn".