Other forms: splints
A splint is a stiff support tied on to keep a broken bone still. Apply a splint, a wooden splint, splint the arm.
The rule is to splint the joint above and the joint below the break, and to check the fingers or toes beyond it before and after — colour, warmth and feeling. A splint immobilises where a cast encloses. The word came from Low German.
1nounsplintA stiff support tied on to keep a broken bone still.
“The nurse put a splint on his broken finger to keep it straight.”
splint is a support.
From Middle Low German splinte, a thin strip of metal or wood. Splinter is a relative.
Middle Dutch
splint
Middle Low German
splinte
Middle English
splint
English, today
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 a nasalized form of splītaną (“to split”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)pley- (“to split, splice”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA