secession

/səˈsɛʃən/

/səˈsɛʃɪn/

Other forms: secessions

The noun secession refers to a big break-up — a formal split, an official “Good-bye to you!” — among political entities. If France has really, truly had it with the European Union, then a French secession movement may be in order.

You could think of secession as a kind of divorce for governments, an official and often lasting split between an alliance, federation, or other political group. Secession is the noun version of the verb secede (meaning to withdraw from an organization), and when a secession takes place the group doing the seceding makes a formal departure from the original group. A famous example of political secession happened right before the American Civil War, when eleven southern states withdrew from the U.S. government over the issue of slavery.

Definitions of secession

1. noun

   formal separation from an alliance or federation
   synonyms: withdrawal

   types:

   breakaway, breaking away

   the act of breaking away or withdrawing from

   type of:

   separation

   the act of dividing or disconnecting
2. noun

   an Austrian school of art and architecture parallel to the French art nouveau in the 1890s
   synonyms: sezession

   type of:

   school

   a body of creative artists or writers or thinkers linked by a similar style or by similar teachers

   art movement, artistic movement

   a group of artists who agree on general principles