The act or process of cutting off. "Not to be cured without the abscission of a member."
2.
The state of being cut off.
3.
(Rhet.) A figure of speech employed when a speaker having begun to say a thing stops abruptly: thus, "He is a man of so much honor and candor, and of such generosity but I need say no more."
... me the abscission of the tongue was very common in the African kingdoms, and was made use of most frequently to punish those thought to be the leaders of any plot, and that they had peculiar instruments to affect it with. I wished him to describe them, but he showed such painful reluctance in this ... — The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
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