splint

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English splente, also splint,^[2][3] probably borrowed from Middle Low German splinte (“thin piece of iron”), also splente,^[2][4][3] or Middle Dutch splinte.^[5][6][7][8] The OED glosses the Low German and Dutch word as a metal plate or pin and sets beside it Old High German splinza (“bolt, bar”), but calls the further origin doubtful, comparing spline and splinter.^[5] The Low German word is the source of German Splint, Danish splint (“splinter”) and Swedish splint (“wooden peg, wedge”),^[5] though Etymonline calls the last two cognates.^[2] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged also compare Old High German spaltan (“to split”),^[4][3] Etymonline suggests a literal sense "thin piece cut off", perhaps from a Germanic offshoot of Proto-Indo-European *(s)plei- (“to split, splice”),^[2] and Klein saw a blend of the bases of split and flint.^[9] Skeat and Weekley brought the armour sense through Old French esplente.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A strip of wood: Barnhart finds the word first in splenteware (1267).^[4] The simple splente appears at about 1300, in Barnhart's dating as a flexible strip of wood or metal in the Romance of Guy of Warwick,^[4] and in Etymonline's as an overlapping plate or strip in armour.^[2] The OED's first quotation is from about 1325, in a gloss on Walter de Bibbesworth, for a slender rod or slip of wood serving a particular purpose, such as a lath.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word first named thin pieces in general, of metal in armour and of wood in building and basketwork.^[5][12] A wood chip or fragment was a splint from 1398, a use now chiefly northern,^[5] and in Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire dialect it meant a splinter or a flake of stone.^[13] Weekley notes that splinter shared some of its senses.^[11] The sense that is now the main one, a thin piece that holds a broken or dislocated bone in place, dates from about 1400, in a translation of Lanfranc's surgery.^[5][2][4] Johnson (1755) knew only this sense.^[14] A slightly later extension went to veterinary medicine: from about 1523 a splint was a hard swelling on a horse's leg.^[5][6] The name was also given to a hard laminated coal from the 18th century^[6][5][13] and, in South Africa, to a fragment of diamond, in a letter of Cecil Rhodes of 1872.^[5] The verb first meant to cover or build with thin strips (before 1400, in the Morte Arthure; obsolete by 1639);^[5] the surgical verb and a figurative "to prop up" (before 1634) followed.^[5] In the dialect of the West Riding of Yorkshire, splint was a term in a game of marbles.^[13]

Timeline

• 1267 – splenteware, a strip of wood.^[4]
• c. 1300 – splente, an overlapping plate or strip in armour.^[2] Barnhart has a flexible strip of wood or metal, probably before 1300,^[4] and the OED's first quotation for armour is from 1374.^[5]
• c. 1325 – a slender rod or slip of wood used as a lath or for a similar purpose.^[5]
• 1392 – verb, to put a fractured bone into splints.^[4] Etymonline dates this to about 1400,^[2] and the OED's first quotation is from 1543.^[5]
• 1398 – a splinter, chip or fragment.^[5]
• before 1400 – verb, to cover or construct with thin strips (obsolete by 1639).^[5]
• c. 1400 – a thin rigid piece holding a broken bone in position.^[5][2][4]
• c. 1523 – a callous swelling on the leg of a horse or mule.^[5]
• before 1634 – verb, figuratively, to strengthen or support.^[5]
• 1789 – a kind of coal, as in splint coal.^[5]
• 1872 – in South Africa, a fragment of diamond.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A rigid or flexible support that keeps an injured body part still, especially a broken bone: The medic bound the wrist to a wooden splint.^[15][3][5]
2. A thin sliver of wood, especially one used to light a fire or a pipe.^[15][12]
3. A thin strip of wood woven with others to make a basket or a chair seat.^[15][3]
4. (veterinary medicine) A hard swelling or inflammation on the small bones of a horse's leg; see splint bone.^[15][5][12]
5. (historical) One of the overlapping metal plates of medieval armour.^[15][5][12]
6. (chiefly northern dialect) A splinter, chip or fragment.^[15][5][12]
7. A hard, stony, laminated coal.^[5][6][13]
8. (South Africa) A fragment of diamond.^[5][12]

Verb

1. To keep a broken bone or injured part still with a splint: They splinted her ankle before moving her.^[15][3][5]
2. To support or brace as if with a splint.^[3][5][12]
3. (obsolete, before 1400–1639) To cover, furnish or build with thin strips of wood.^[5][12]
4. (obsolete, 1591–1600) To cut wood into thin strips; to split apart.^[5][12]

Word family

• splintlike
• unsplinted
• splint bone

Related words

• splinter
• spline
• split

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins