splint

Etymology

Wrist splint

From Middle English, from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch

Pronunciation

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Noun

splint (plural splints)

1. A narrow strip of wood split or peeled from a larger piece.
2. (medicine) A device to immobilize a body part.

   1900 But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, Chapter 5.

3. A dental device applied consequent to undergoing orthodontia.
4. A segment of armor.

   1819 The fore-part of his thighs, where the folds of his mantle permitted them to be seen, were also covered with linked mail; the knees and feet were defended by splints, or thin plates of steel, ingeniously jointed upon each other; and mail hose, reaching from the ankle to the knee, effectually protected the legs, and completed the rider's defensive armour. — Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, Chapter 1.

5. A bone found on either side of the horse's cannon bone; second or fourth metacarpal (forelimb) or metatarsal (hindlimb) bone.
6. A disease affecting the splint bones, as a callosity or hard excrescence.
7. splent coal

Verb

splint (third-person singular simple present splints, present participle splinting, simple past and past participle splinted)

1. (transitive) To apply a splint to; to fasten with splints.
2. To support one's abdomen with hands or a pillow before attempting to cough.
3. (obsolete, rare, transitive) To split into thin, slender pieces; to splinter.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Florio to this entry?)