From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishumbilical cordum‧bil‧i‧cal cord /ʌmˈbɪlɪkəl ˌkɔːd $ -ˌkɔːrd/ noun [countable] 1 MBa long narrow tube of flesh that joins an unborn baby to its mother2 a strong feeling of belonging to or a strong feeling of relationship with a particular place, person, organization etc All modern popular music has an umbilical cord linking back to blues and R and B. Teenage boys especially feel a need to cut the umbilical cord tying them to their mothers.
Examples from the Corpus
umbilical cord• As events would prove, it was a frail umbilical cord from the customer to design and manufacturing.• When my daughter still had her umbilical cord, my husband worried about infection.• Without this retractable umbilical cord, the soul would be utterly lost in the chaos of its dreams.• Don't you wish you were joined by the umbilical cord again and nobody had the power to cut it?• Severing the umbilical cord between landlords and peasants vastly increased the proportion of the population for which the centre was directly responsible.• A girl born with the umbilical cord twisted round her neck may feel that she always gets herself tied up in things.• The maternal bond had been cut with the umbilical cord - at birth.cut the umbilical cord• Boys in particular need to cut the umbilical cord. 