splinter

/'splintə/

Thân thiện

A child carefully removes a small splinter from his finger with tweezers.

Definition

1. Noun:

   • A small, thin, sharp fragment of material: A splinter is a tiny, often sharp piece of wood, glass, metal, or other hard material that has broken off from a larger object.

2. Verb:

   • To break into small, sharp fragments: To splinter means for a material to shatter or split into thin, sharp pieces.
   • To separate from a larger group or organization: To splinter means for a group to divide or fragment into smaller, often opposing factions.

Examples of Usage

• Noun: He carefully removed the wooden splinter from her thumb.The broken window left dangerous glass splinters on the floor.

• Verb (to break into fragments): The old, dry wood splintered easily under the hammer.The impact caused the plastic to splinter into tiny pieces.

• Verb (to separate from a group): The political party began to splinter over the controversial issue.Several members splintered off to form their own club.

Advanced Usage

• "to splinter off": to separate from a larger group to form a new, distinct faction.

Variants and Related Words

• Splintery (adj): Having the quality of being prone to splintering or full of splinters.

Synonyms

• Noun: Sliver, shard, fragment, chip, flake.
• Verb (to break): Shatter, fragment, shiver, split.
• Verb (to separate): Break away, secede, fragment, divide.

Related Phrasal Verbs

• Splinter off: To separate from a larger entity.

Related Idioms

• No common idioms use "splinter" as the core word.

Học thuật

Noun

1. a small thin sharp bit or wood or glass or metal
   • he got a splinter in his finger
   • it broke into slivers

Verb

1. break up into splinters or slivers
   • The wood splintered
2. divide into slivers or splinters
3. withdraw from an organization or communion
   • After the break up of the Soviet Union, many republics broke away

Từ đồng nghĩa

• sliver
• secede
• break away