A parting is the line the hair is separated along, or a leaving. A side parting, a centre parting, a sad parting.
The hair sense is British; American English says part. It is also the act of separating from somebody, which gives parting words and a parting shot. A parting shot is a last remark fired as you leave.
1nounpartingThe line the hair is separated along.
“He combs his hair with a neat parting on the left.”
2nounleavingA leaving or separation.
“Their parting at the airport was full of tears and promises to write.”
parting is a line, or a leaving.
Proto-Indo-European
*perh₃-
Proto-Indo-European
*par-
Latin
partem
Old French
part — part
Old English
part — part
Middle English
part
English
part
English, today
parting
Built from
by surface analysis, part + -ing. part comes from Middle English part, from Old English part (“part”) and Old French part (“part”); both from Latin partem, accusative of pars (“piece, portion, share, side, party, faction, role, character, lot, fate, task, lesson, part, member”), from Proto-Indo-European par-, per- (“to sell, exchange”). Akin to Latin portiō (“a portion, part”), parō (“to make ready, prepare”). del, dele (“part”) (from Old English dǣl (“part, distribution”) > Modern English deal (“portion; amount”)), Middle English dale, dole (“part, portion”) (from Old English dāl (“portion”) > Modern English dole), Middle English sliver (“part, portion”) (from Middle English sliven (“to cut, cleave”), from Old English tōslifan (“to split”)).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA