Search the Dictionary

Working smoothly, or without splitting; -- said of timber.

A wooden wedge used in splitting blocks. [Prov. Eng.]

To cure, by splitting, salting, and smoking. "Kippered salmon." Dickens.

Extended to a great length. The cicadæ hushed their long-drawn, ear-splitting strains. G. W. Cable.

Pertaining to, or containing, mica; splitting into laminæ or leaves like mica.

A fragment or part of anything separated from the whole, in any manner, as by cutting, splitting, breaking, or tearing; a part; a portion; as, a piece of sugar; to break in pieces. Bring it out piece by piece. Ezek. xxiv. 6.

A pen for writing made by sharpening and splitting the point or nib of the stock of a feather; as, history is the proper subject of his quill. Sir H. Wotton.

An opening made by riving or splitting; a cleft; a fissure. Spenser.

ding fungi, the various species of which have the power, to a greater or less extent, or splitting up sugar into alcohol and carbonic acid. They are the active agents in producing fermentation of wine, beer, etc. Saccharomyces cerevisiæ is the yeast of sedimentary beer. Also called Torula.

A split of a sheepskin; one of the thin sections made by splitting a sheepskin with a cutting knife or machine.

The cutting tool or machine used in splitting leather or skins, as sheepskins.

The act of paring or splitting leather or skins.

or properties, of slate; composed of thin parallel plates, capable of being separated by splitting; as, a slaty color or texture. Slaty cleavage (Min.), cleavage, as of rocks, into thin leaves or plates, like those of slate; -- applied especially to those cases in which the planes of cleavage are not parallel to the pl…

A knife used in splitting codfish. [Written also spalding knife.]

A piece that is split off, or made thin, by splitting; a splinter; a fragment.

One of the strips at the end of a bandage formed by splitting the bandage one or more times.

A tool for splitting wood into shingles; a frow.

other hard material, thick at one end, and tapering to a thin edge at the other, used in splitting wood, rocks, etc., in raising heavy bodies, and the like. It is one of the six elementary machines called the mechanical powers. See Illust. of Mechanical powers, under Mechanical.