splits

1. 1
   nounplural

   A move in which the legs are stretched fully apart in a straight line, either out to both sides or with one leg forward and one back.

   Like a clock's hands pointing straight to nine and three, forming a single line.

   The dancer lowered herself into the splits with effortless control.

   Cheerleaders ended the routine by dropping into the splits in unison.

   Note

   This position is named only in the plural, and almost always with the article: you do the splits, go into the splits, drop into the splits. Gymnasts and dancers distinguish side splits, with the legs out to either side, from front splits, with one leg forward and one back. The article usually separates it from the everyday plural of split, which means several cracks or divisions.

2. 2
   noun

   Plural of split.

   Several deep splits ran through the old wooden beam.

   The negotiations produced a series of awkward splits among the partners.

   Note

   Nearly every countable kind of split takes this ordinary -s plural: cracks in a beam, breaches in a party, thin layers cut from a skin, even the weekly routines a lifter divides by muscle group. The gymnast's move is the one to watch. A single split is countable, but the plural-only stretch is always "the splits." The same spelling also serves the present-tense verb.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of split.

   He splits firewood every fall before the first snow arrives.

   The river splits into two channels near the delta.

   Note

   Like its base verb, this form works with or without an object. Someone splits the wood, and the wood splits along the grain on its own. A quarrel splits a party, and a party splits. In slang it simply means leaving: when the talk turns dull, he splits. That use suits casual speech rather than formal writing.

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