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Interstice

ɪnˈtɜː.stɪs

noun

a small space or gap between objects or things

The word 'interstice' comes from the Latin word 'interstitium', meaning 'interval'. It is often used to describe a small, narrow space or gap between things, such as cells or particles.

See how Walt Whitman, James Joyce and 2 other authors use "interstice", with its meaning, pronunciation and real book examples.

Examples from books

We all looked on in horrified amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal body as real at that moment as our own, pass in through the interstice where scarce a knife-blade could have gone.

Bram Stoker

Dracula

From time to time, if some soldier, an officer or representative of the people, chanced to traverse the deserted highway, a faint, sharp whistle was heard, and the passerby fell dead or wounded, or, if he escaped the bullet, sometimes a biscaïen was seen to ensconce itself in some closed shutter, in the interstice between two blocks of stone, or in the plaster of a wall.

Victor Hugo

Les Misérables

A Glimpse A glimpse through an interstice caught, Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark'd seated in a corner, Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand, A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest, There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.

Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass

On land, meridional, a bispherical moon, revealed in imperfect varying phases of lunation through the posterior interstice of the imperfectly occluded skirt of a carnose negligent perambulating female, a pillar of the cloud by day.

James Joyce

Ulysses