Green’s Dictionary of Slang

split n.

1. in senses of division.

(a) (UK Und.) the parting of a group of criminals.

[UK]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.

[UK]Clarkson & Richardson Police! 321: A share ... Regular, split, drop.
[US]Van Loan ‘No Business’ in Taking the Count 155: I don’t split with anybody [...] [I] do my own management. No split!
[US]G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 96: No jealous comrade, sore over a ‘split,’ can sell him out.
[US]R. Chandler ‘Goldfish’ in Red Wind (1946) 160: Two way split. You and me.
[UK]V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 220: He grafted on the principle of ‘no split and no squeal’.
[US]B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 60: Big Mac [...] was waiting docilely for his split.
[US]C. Cooper Jr Syndicate (1998) 64: He got a telegram [...] telling him to meet up this afternoon at the club for the split.
[US]‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 83: The split left me with a shade over $25,000.
[UK]A-Team Storybook 38: His fifty thousand split from the A-Team’s last job.
[UK]K. Sampson Powder 247: Into you for the publishing splits already, is he?
[US]F.X. Toole 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.

[UK]‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue.
[Aus]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’.
[UK]C. Williams A Master of Crime 88: I thought that from what the girl told me that you were a ‘split’.
[Ire]Joyce Ulysses 469: The squeak is out. A split is gone for the flatties.
[UK]‘George Orwell’ 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.
[UK](con. 1937) R. Westerby Mad in Pursuit 153: Do I look like a split? Eh?
[UK]I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 209: A splitter, a squealer, a snake in the grass.

(b) a detective or police officer.

[Aus]‘G.G.’ 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”’’.
[UK]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 .
[UK]Mirror of Life : .
[UK]D. Stewart Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 17 Aug. 12/2: ‘Hear all and say nuffing, Joe! There’s more than one split (detective) here to-night’.
[UK]E. Pugh 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.
[UK]S. Scott Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 17: One of the ‘splits’ looked reminiscent. ‘Peroin?’ he asked, ‘Peroin? I’ve heard that name before.’.
[Ire]Eve. Herald (Dublin) 9 Dec. 4/6: Hopping from the crooks’ den to his meeting place with the ‘split’ (detective).
[UK]M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 195: A couple of splits, two blinking bloodhounds of the blooming Law, were hot on my trail!
[UK]L. Ortzen Down Donkey Row 25: The splits say we’re a menace – not the flat-feet from the station round the Johnny Horner.
[UK]M. Harrison Reported Safe Arrival 49: ’S a good fing the splits can’t read Latin, or you’d be in the Nick.
[UK]J. Morton Lowspeak 132: Split – a detective.

(c) (US Und.) an act of betrayal.

[US]Goldin et al. DAUL 203/1: Split, n. [...] 3. (Rare) A betrayal to police.

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.
[US]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.
[UK]‘Walter’ 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.
[UK]‘Ramrod’ Family Connections 51: Sometimes we each had a spout instead of a split on our lips.
[US] (ref. to mid-19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 35: There were all kinds of crazy positions and over-sized cocks and hairy pubic splits.
[[US] in E. Cray 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].
[US]B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 226: Pussy ain’t nothin’ but a hairy split.
[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

(b) (also split belly, split end, split stuff ) a female, women, esp. as viewed as sex objects.

[Aus]Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] 132: SPLIT-STUFF: slang for the female commodity.
[US]A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Split, a girl.
[Aus]Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 70: split stuff: Women in general.
[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
[Aus]N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 239/2: split stuff – women, all women.
[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 188: split belly any woman [...] Syn: split stuff .

4. small change.

[UK]P.H. Emerson 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].

[UK]J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

6. in senses of liquid measurement.

(a) a drink composed of two different liquids, usu. alcoholic.

[UK]Society 11 Nov. 22/2: The ‘nips’, the ‘stims’, the ‘sherries and Angosturas’, the ‘splits’ of young Contango [OED].
[UK]Sporting Times 21 Mar. 1/1: The Liberal ‘split’ is vinegar and water.

(b) a half-glass of spirits.

[UK]Sporting Times 1 Nov. 3/1: The Honourable Hampton Wick rubicund with the rubicundity that only comes of repeated splits.
[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
[UK]Kipling ‘The Bonds of Discipline’ in Traffics and Discoveries 65: Antonio was busy fetchin’ splits for the old man [...] wardroom whisky-an’-soda.
[UK]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.

[UK] in Punch 17 Jan. 27: NEW IRISH DRINK.—The Parnellite ‘Split.’.
[Aus]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.
[US]G.D. Chase ‘Lists From Maine’ in DN IV i 5: split, n. Half water and half alcohol.

(d) (also split soda) a medium-sized bottle of mineral water, suitable for sharing between two.

[UK]Bradford Observer 5 Oct. n.p.: Apollinaris [table water]. Now supplied in splits .
[UK]A. Binstead More Gal’s Gossip 32: A bottle of the size generally known as a ‘split soda’.
[UK]J. Ware 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.

G. Moore Mummer’s Wife (1908) 219: When she had finished Montgomery tried to persuade her to try a ‘split’ with him .
[UK]A. Binstead Mop Fair 85: The rubicundity that comes only of repeated ‘splits’.
[US]N.C. Heard When Shadows Fall 32: ‘Gimme a champagne split, baby,’ he said to the girl behind the bar.

7. (Aus./US) a safety match.

[US]A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Split, a match (prison).
[Aus]Baker Drum.

8. (US drugs) any pill – an amphetamine or barbiturate – that has a groove embedded in its surface.

[US]P. Thomas 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.
[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 156: He offers to suck cock or proffers an upturned fanny in exchange for [...] cross-tops or splits (‘bennies’).

In derivatives

splitter (n.)

(Aus. Und.) a payment that will obrtain a free pardon.

[Aus]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