splint

Wrist splint

From Middle English splint, splent, splente, from Middle Low German splinte, splente or Middle Dutch splint, splinte. Cognate with Old High German splinza (“bar, bolt, latch”). All ultimately from Proto-Germanic *splintǭ, *splintō (“piece of wood, splinter”), from Proto-Germanic *splint-, *splind- (“to split”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pley- (“to split, splice”).

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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, a narrow overlapping plate.

   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

• For a horse to pop a splint is for it to receive an injury to the splint bone or surrounding area.

• shin splint
• splinter

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?)