split
verb
discontinue an association or relation; go different ways
- “The business partners broke over a tax question”
- “The couple separated after 25 years of marriage”
- “My friend and I split up”
noun
an increase in the number of outstanding shares of a corporation without changing the shareholders'' equity
- “they announced a two-for-one split of the common stock”
adjective
broken or burst apart longitudinally
- “after the thunderstorm we found a tree with a split trunk”
- “they tore big juicy chunks from the heart of the split watermelon”
(especially of wood) cut or ripped longitudinally with the grain
- “we bought split logs for the fireplace”
Origin
Attested since about 1567, from Middle Dutch splitten (“to split”) and/or Middle Low German splitten (“to split”), both ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *splittjan, an intensive form of Proto-West Germanic *splītan (“to split”), from Proto-Germanic *splītaną (whence Danish splitte, Low German splieten, German spleißen), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pley- (“to split, splice”). Compare Middle English ysplett (“split”, past participle of splatten (“to split”)), Old English speld (“splinter”), Old High German spaltan (“to split”), Middle Irish slis (“splinter”), Lithuanian spaliai (“flax sheaves”), Czech půl (“half”), Old Church Slavonic рас-плитати (ras-plitati, “to cleave, split”).
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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.