Splits

How to spell splits

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce splits

What does splits mean?

1. verbDivides something into parts, or breaks apart, in the present tense with he, she, or it.
2. nounA gymnastic or dance position in which the legs are extended fully in opposite directions, or the plural of a division or share.

Splits in a sentence

• verb

  The recipe splits the dough into twelve equal pieces.

• noun

  After months of stretching she could finally do the splits on the studio floor.

• verb

  The river splits the valley into two distinct halves.

• noun

  The children ordered banana splits to share after dinner.

Where does splits come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

The base word split came into English in the late 1500s from the Middle Dutch and Low German word splitten, meaning 'to cleave, to break apart along the grain'. Dutch sailors and traders were a strong influence on English at the time, so a cluster of nautical and practical words crossed the North Sea in this period, and split was used early on for a ship or a rope breaking apart under strain. From the literal sense of dividing wood or stone, the meaning broadened to splitting groups, opinions, money, and even hairs. The form splits simply adds the regular -s, serving either as the plural of the noun (as in 'the splits' in gymnastics, or banana splits) or as the present-tense verb that goes with he, she, or it. The spelling is phonetically faithful, so the only real trap is remembering it is a clean consonant cluster with no doubled letters.

How the word is built

• split (to divide, from Middle Dutch splitten)
• -s (plural noun / third-person verb suffix)