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Splint

To split into splints, or thin, slender pieces; to splinter; to shiver.

Splinter

A thin piece split or rent off lengthwise, as from wood, bone, or other solid substance; a thin piece; a sliver; as, splinters of a ship's mast rent off by a shot.

Splinterproof

Proof against the splinters, or fragments, of bursting shells.

Splintery

Consisting of splinters; resembling splinters; as, the splintery fracture of a mineral.

Split-tail

A California market fish (Pogonichthys macrolepidotus) belonging to the Carp family. The pintail duck.

Split-tongued

Having a forked tongue, as that of snakes and some lizards.

Splotchy

Covered or marked with splotches.

Splurge

To make a great display in any way, especially in oratory.

Splutter

A confused noise, as of hasty speaking.

Spodomantic

Relating to spodomancy, or divination by means of ashes.

Spodumene

A mineral of a white to yellowish, purplish, or emerald-green color, occurring in prismatic crystals, often of great size. It is a silicate of alumina and lithia. See Hiddenite.

Spoffish

Earnest and active in matters of no moment; bustling.

Spoil

That which is taken from another by violence; especially, the plunder taken from an enemy; pillage; booty.

Spoiler

One who spoils; a plunderer; a pillager; a robber; a despoiler.

Spoilfive

A certain game at cards in which, if no player wins three of the five tricks possible on any deal, the game is said to be spoiled.

Spoilsman

One who serves a cause or a party for a share of the spoils; in United States politics, one who makes or recognizes a demand for public office on the ground of partisan service; also, one who sanctions such a policy in appointments to the public service.

Spoilsmonger

One who promises or distributes public offices and their emoluments as the price of services to a party or its leaders.

Spoke

To furnish with spokes, as a wheel.

Spoken

Uttered in speech; delivered by word of mouth; oral; as, a spoken narrative; the spoken word.

Spokeshave

A kind of drawing knife or planing tool for dressing the spokes of wheels, the shells of blocks, and other curved work.

Spoliate

To plunder; to pillage; to despoil; to rob.

Spoliation

The act of plundering; robbery; deprivation; despoliation.

Spoliative

Serving to take away, diminish, or rob; esp. (Med.), serving to diminish sensibly the amount of blood in the body; as, spoliative bloodletting.

Spoliatory

Tending to spoil; destructive; spoliative.

Spondee

A poetic foot of two long syllables, as in the Latin word l/g/s.

Spong

An irregular, narrow, projecting part of a field.

Sponge

To suck in, or imbibe, as a sponge.

Spongeous

Resembling sponge; having the nature or qualities of sponge.

Sponger

One who sponges, or uses a sponge.

Spongiae

The grand division of the animal kingdom which includes the sponges; -- called also Spongida, Spongiaria, Spongiozoa, and Porifera.

Spongiform

Resembling a sponge; soft and porous; porous.

Spongilla

A genus of siliceous sponges found in fresh water.

Spongin

The chemical basis of sponge tissue, a nitrogenous, hornlike substance which on decomposition with sulphuric acid yields leucin and glycocoll.

Spongiole

A supposed spongelike expansion of the tip of a rootlet for absorbing water; -- called also spongelet.

Spongiolite

One of the microscopic siliceous spicules which occur abundantly in the texture of sponges, and are sometimes found fossil, as in flints.

Spongiopilin

A kind of cloth interwoven with small pieces of sponge and rendered waterproof on one side by a covering of rubber. When moistened with hot water it is used as a poultice.

Spongious Spongiose

Somewhat spongy; spongelike; full of small cavities like sponge; as, spongious bones.

Spongoblast

One of the cells which, in sponges, secrete the spongin, or the material of the horny fibers.

Spongy

Soft, and full of cavities; of an open, loose, pliable texture; as, a spongy excrescence; spongy earth; spongy cake; spongy bones.

Sponsal

Relating to marriage, or to a spouse; spousal.

Sponsion

The act of becoming surety for another.

Sponsional

Of or pertaining to a pledge or agreement; responsible.

Sponson

One of the triangular platforms in front of, and abaft, the paddle boxes of a steamboat. One of the slanting supports under the guards of a steamboat. One of the armored projections fitted with gun ports, used on modern war vessels.

Sponsor

One who binds himself to answer for another, and is responsible for his default; a surety.

Spontaneity

The quality or state of being spontaneous, or acting from native feeling, proneness, or temperament, without constraint or external force.

Spontaneous

Proceeding from natural feeling, temperament, or disposition, or from a native internal proneness, readiness, or tendency, without constraint; as, a spontaneous gift or proposition.

Spontoon

A kind of half-pike, or halberd, formerly borne by inferior officers of the British infantry, and used in giving signals to the soldiers.

Spook

A spirit; a ghost; an apparition; a hobgoblin.

Spool

To wind on a spool or spools.

Spooler

One who, or that which, spools.

Spoom

To be driven steadily and swiftly, as before a strong wind; to be driven before the wind without any sail, or with only a part of the sails spread; to scud under bare poles.

Spoon

To fish with a spoon bait.

Spoon-billed

Having the bill expanded and spatulate at the end.

Spoon-meat

Food that is, or must be, taken with a spoon; liquid food.

Spoonbill

Any one of several species of wading birds of the genera Ajaja and Platalea, and allied genera, in which the long bill is broadly expanded and flattened at the tip.

Spoondrift

Spray blown from the tops of waves during a gale at sea; also, snow driven in the wind at sea; -- written also spindrift.

Spooney

A weak-minded or silly person; one who is foolishly fond.

Spoonful

The quantity which a spoon contains, or is able to contain; as, a teaspoonful; a tablespoonful.

Spoonwood

The mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia).

Spoonworm

A gephyrean worm of the genus Thalassema, having a spoonlike proboscis.

Spoor

To follow a spoor or trail.

Sporades

Stars not included in any constellation; -- called also informed, or unformed, stars.

Sporadic

Occurring singly, or apart from other things of the same kind, or in scattered instances; separate; single; as, a sporadic fireball; a sporadic case of disease; a sporadic example of a flower.

Sporangiophore

The axis or receptacle in certain ferns (as Trichomanes), which bears the sporangia.

Sporangium

A spore case in the cryptogamous plants, as in ferns, etc.

Spore

One of the minute grains in flowerless plants, which are analogous to seeds, as serving to reproduce the species.

Sporidium

A secondary spore, or a filament produced from a spore, in certain kinds of minute fungi. A spore.

Sporification

Spore formation. See Spore formation (b), under Spore.

Sporocarp

A closed body or conceptacle containing one or more masses of spores or sporangia. A sporangium.

Sporocyst

An asexual zooid, usually forming one of a series of larval forms in the agamic reproduction of various trematodes and other parasitic worms. The sporocyst generally develops from an egg, but in its turn produces other larvae by internal budding, or by the subdivision of a part or all of its contents into a number of minute germs. See Redia.

Sporogony

The growth or development of an animal or a zooid from a nonsexual germ.

Sporophore

A placenta. That alternately produced form of certain cryptogamous plants, as ferns, mosses, and the like, which is nonsexual, but produces spores in countless numbers. In ferns it is the leafy plant, in mosses the capsule. Cf. Oophore.

Sporophyte

In plants exhibiting alternation of generations, the generation which bears asexual spores; -- opposed to gametophyte. It is not clearly differentiated in the life cycle of the lower plants.

Sporosac

A hydrozoan reproductive zooid or gonophore which does not become medusoid in form or structure. See Illust. under Athecata. An early or simple larval stage of trematode worms and some other invertebrates, which is capable of reproducing other germs by asexual generation; a nurse; a redia.

Sporozoa

An extensive division of parasitic Protozoa, which increase by sporulation. It includes the Gregarinida.

Sporozoite

In certain Sporozoa, a small active, usually elongate, sickle-shaped or somewhat amoeboid spore, esp. one of those produced by division of the passive spores into which the zygote divides. The sporozoites reproduce asexually.

Sporran

A large purse or pouch made of skin with the hair or fur on, worn in front of the kilt by Highlanders when in full dress.

Sport

To divert; to amuse; to make merry; -- used with the reciprocal pronoun.

Sportal

Of or pertaining to sports; used in sports.

Sporter

One who sports; a sportsman.

Sportful

Full of sport; merry; frolicsome; full of jesting; indulging in mirth or play; playful; wanton; as, a sportful companion.

Sporting

Of, pertaining to, or engaging in, sport or sports; exhibiting the character or conduct of one who, or that which, sports.

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