split n.
1. in senses of division.
(a) (UK Und.) the parting of a group of criminals.
Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 23/2: We’ll have to ‘namase now’ [...] Let us shove the ‘sugar’ round and make a ‘split’ to meet at Boulogne. |
(b) the division of criminal spoils, or of any sum of money.
Police! 321: A share ... Regular, split, drop. | ||
Taking the Count 155: I don’t split with anybody [...] [I] do my own management. No split! | ‘No Business’ in||
Keys to Crookdom 96: No jealous comrade, sore over a ‘split,’ can sell him out. | ||
Red Wind (1946) 160: Two way split. You and me. | ‘Goldfish’ in||
Phenomena in Crime 220: He grafted on the principle of ‘no split and no squeal’. | ||
On the Waterfront (1964) 60: Big Mac [...] was waiting docilely for his split. | ||
Syndicate (1998) 64: He got a telegram [...] telling him to meet up this afternoon at the club for the split. | ||
Gonif 83: The split left me with a shade over $25,000. | ||
A-Team Storybook 38: His fifty thousand split from the A-Team’s last job. | ||
Powder 247: Into you for the publishing splits already, is he? | ||
Pound for Pound 59: Trini [...] took the comfortable top piece of a 75-25 split. |
2. in senses of informing, betrayal [split v. (3a)].
(a) (also splitter) an informer.
Vulgar Tongue. | ||
Kalgoorlie Miner (WA) 8 May 3/1: ‘I jumped at the chance, you bet, because I thought that it might help me to get away from my friend the split’. | ||
A Master of Crime 88: I thought that from what the girl told me that you were a ‘split’. | ||
Ulysses 469: The squeak is out. A split is gone for the flatties. | ||
Keep The Aspidistra Flying (1962) 197: The others were deeply suspicious of him [...] they all declared he was a ‘split’. The police, it was said, often put a ‘split’ into the cells, disguised as a prisoner, to pick up information. | ||
(con. 1937) Mad in Pursuit 153: Do I look like a split? Eh? | ||
Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 209: A splitter, a squealer, a snake in the grass. |
(b) a detective or police officer.
Sporting Sketches in Sportsman (Melbourne) (18/10/1898) 5/8: ‘Two “splits” who ’ad a nark agen Pinky and they sez [...] “We won’t have bad characters like you bettin’ ’ere”’’. | ||
Mirror of Life 2 Feb. 10/3: [A]t a quarter past three on Thursday morning, the ‘splits’ entered this club and took possession of the proprietor, his wife, the doorkeeper, and the waiter, and conveyed them to Bow Street . | ||
Mirror of Life : . | ||
Illus. Police News 17 Aug. 12/2: ‘Hear all and say nuffing, Joe! There’s more than one split (detective) here to-night’. | Shadows of the Night in||
City Of The World 260: He’ll see a parcel of wedge – which is plate – into the pot right under the noses o’ the splits, for all it’s got a monogram on it as well known as what the Union Jack is. | ||
Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 17: One of the ‘splits’ looked reminiscent. ‘Peroin?’ he asked, ‘Peroin? I’ve heard that name before.’. | ||
Eve. Herald (Dublin) 9 Dec. 4/6: Hopping from the crooks’ den to his meeting place with the ‘split’ (detective). | ||
Tramp-Royal on the Toby 195: A couple of splits, two blinking bloodhounds of the blooming Law, were hot on my trail! | ||
Down Donkey Row 25: The splits say we’re a menace – not the flat-feet from the station round the Johnny Horner. | ||
Reported Safe Arrival 49: ’S a good fing the splits can’t read Latin, or you’d be in the Nick. | ||
Lowspeak 132: Split – a detective. |
(c) (US Und.) an act of betrayal.
DAUL 203/1: Split, n. [...] 3. (Rare) A betrayal to police. | et al.
3. in senses of physiology.
(a) the vagina.
in Jones-Conklin Ms (1958) n.p.: And now I climb as sweet a tree as ever plumb grew on, sir, / I will try the split and graft it in, and see what fruit ’twill bring, sir. | ||
Venus’ Miscellany (NY) 23 May n.p.: Suction split, a deep ravine near Cream Lake in the Kingdom of Easy Belly, a warm country in Eth-i-o-pia. | ||
My Secret Life (1966) I 29: Lucy, fifteen years old, was lying half on her side, naked from her knees to her waist [...] we saw her split, till lost in the closed thighs. | ||
Family Connections 51: Sometimes we each had a spout instead of a split on our lips. | ||
(ref. to mid-19C) Amer. Madam (1981) 35: There were all kinds of crazy positions and over-sized cocks and hairy pubic splits. | ||
[ | in Erotic Muse (1992) 184: Oh, the ring-dang-doo, now what is that? / It’s big and round like a pussy cat, / Covered with fur and split in two. / That’s what they call the ring-dang-doo]. | |
Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 226: Pussy ain’t nothin’ but a hairy split. | ||
Queens’ Vernacular. |
(b) (also split belly, split end, split stuff ) a female, women, esp. as viewed as sex objects.
Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 132: SPLIT-STUFF: slang for the female commodity. | ||
Und. Speaks n.p.: Split, a girl. | ||
Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 70: split stuff: Women in general. | ||
Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | ||
I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 239/2: split stuff – women, all women. | ||
Queens’ Vernacular 188: split belly any woman [...] Syn: split stuff . |
4. small change.
Signor Lippo 47: See everything is bono, and keep the split in your skyrocket. |
5. a pimp, a procurer [he splits the woman’s earnings with her].
Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era. |
6. in senses of liquid measurement.
(a) a drink composed of two different liquids, usu. alcoholic.
Society 11 Nov. 22/2: The ‘nips’, the ‘stims’, the ‘sherries and Angosturas’, the ‘splits’ of young Contango [OED]. | ||
Sporting Times 21 Mar. 1/1: The Liberal ‘split’ is vinegar and water. |
(b) a half-glass of spirits.
Sporting Times 1 Nov. 3/1: The Honourable Hampton Wick rubicund with the rubicundity that only comes of repeated splits. | ||
Sl. and Its Analogues. | ||
Traffics and Discoveries 65: Antonio was busy fetchin’ splits for the old man [...] wardroom whisky-an’-soda. | ‘The Bonds of Discipline’ in||
Sporting Times 29 Feb. 1/4: ‘A little given to whisky, aren’t you?’ said the life-assurance doctor to the impossible Pitcher. ‘Oh, I take a split occasionally.’. |
(c) (US) a drink composed of half water/half alcohol.
in Punch 17 Jan. 27: NEW IRISH DRINK.—The Parnellite ‘Split.’. | ||
Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Oct. 19/3: Amongst these sinful fabrications may be mentioned ‘split,’ a beverage made of the cheapest kind of alcohol, mixed with water and a dash of rum. | ||
DN IV i 5: split, n. Half water and half alcohol. | ‘Lists From Maine’ in
(d) (also split soda) a medium-sized bottle of mineral water, suitable for sharing between two.
Bradford Observer 5 Oct. n.p.: Apollinaris [table water]. Now supplied in splits . | ||
More Gal’s Gossip 32: A bottle of the size generally known as a ‘split soda’. | ||
Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 231/1: Split soda (Tavern, 1860 on). A bottle of soda water divided between two guests. The ‘baby’ soda is for one client. |
(e) a half-bottle of champagne.
Mummer’s Wife (1908) 219: When she had finished Montgomery tried to persuade her to try a ‘split’ with him . | ||
Mop Fair 85: The rubicundity that comes only of repeated ‘splits’. | ||
When Shadows Fall 32: ‘Gimme a champagne split, baby,’ he said to the girl behind the bar. |
7. (Aus./US) a safety match.
Und. Speaks n.p.: Split, a match (prison). | ||
Drum. |
8. (US drugs) any pill – an amphetamine or barbiturate – that has a groove embedded in its surface.
Down These Mean Streets (1970) 258: Splits were common. They’re round white pills with a groove across the middle, some sort of tranquilizer. If you swallow one with a glass of hot water, you get a gone high that’s almost like what you get with heroin. | ||
Queens’ Vernacular 156: He offers to suck cock or proffers an upturned fanny in exchange for [...] cross-tops or splits (‘bennies’). |
In derivatives
(Aus. Und.) a payment that will obrtain a free pardon.
Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas.) 2 Feb. 4/3: Also, the current market price — the splitter, in slang language, may obtain for the said free blank pardon. |
In phrases
see split-tail n.
see split v. (2a)