splitting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of split.

   The woodcutter spent the cold morning splitting logs for the fire.

   Splitting the profits evenly kept the two partners on good terms.

   Note

   The -ing form doubles its t and does two jobs. It is the participle in continuous tenses (she was splitting logs) and the gerund (splitting the profits kept them friends). The gerund takes its object directly, while the noun of breaking apart takes of: the splitting of the rock. Elsewhere the verb never changes, since split also serves as past and past participle. The slang "leave" carries over: we're splitting.

2. 2
   adjective

   Causing severe, intense pain, especially of a headache.

   Like the feeling that your skull is being pried apart.

   A splitting headache kept her from concentrating on the report.

   He nursed a splitting migraine through the entire meeting.

   Similarpounding, blinding, throbbing, excruciating, agonizing

   Oppositemild, slight

   Note

   Close to a fixed phrase: a splitting headache, a splitting migraine. The adjective conjures a head that feels as though it is being split, and it rarely strays to other kinds of bodily pain. It sits before its noun, so learners should say a splitting headache rather than describing a pain itself as splitting.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The action or an instance of something dividing or breaking apart.

   Like a single road dividing into two separate lanes.

   The splitting of the rock revealed a glittering vein of quartz.

   Engineers studied the splitting of the beam under heavy load.

   Similarcracking, breaking, fracture, rupture, division

4. 4
   adjective

   Sounding like something being torn or split open.

   Like the crack of a whip slicing the air.

   With a splitting crack, the mast gave way in the storm.

   The fireworks ended in a splitting report that echoed across the valley.

   Similartearing

5. 5
   adjective

   Extremely fast; moving at great speed.

   The runners took the first lap at a splitting pace.

   She rode off at a splitting gallop to deliver the news.

   Similarbreakneck, blistering, furious, rapid

   Oppositeslow, leisurely

6. 6
   noununcountable

   A division within the mind that affects a person's sense of self.

   Like seeing the world only in black and white, never in shades of gray.

   Splitting led the patient to idealize his doctor one week and despise her the next.

   Clinicians often observe splitting in those with borderline personality disorder.

   Note

   A psychotherapist's term for a defense the mind uses against what it cannot hold together. In one form, the self or another person is seen as wholly good or wholly bad rather than mixed. In Brett Kahr's Sex and the Psyche (2007), it names something shaming that is both remembered and pushed to the edge of consciousness. As a clinical noun it often appears without an article: patients show splitting.

7. 7
   noununcountable

   The breaking, or cleavage, of a covalent bond.

   Like a rope held by two hands tearing apart down the middle.

   Ultraviolet light drives the splitting of the oxygen molecule into free radicals.

   The reaction begins with the splitting of the carbon-chlorine bond.

   Similarcleavage, breaking

   Note

   Chemists sort it by where the shared electron pair goes. In homolytic splitting the pair divides evenly, leaving each fragment one electron, which is the route to free radicals. In heterolytic splitting one fragment keeps both. The word usually comes with the bond named, as in the splitting of the carbon–chlorine bond, and it alternates freely with cleavage.

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