splint

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A thin piece split off from a larger piece; a splinter.
• noun A rigid device used to prevent motion of a joint or of the ends of a fractured bone.
• noun A dental appliance put on the teeth to protect them from grinding or from moving out of place.
• noun A thin, flexible wooden strip, such as one used in the making of baskets or chair bottoms.
• noun A plate or strip of metal.
• noun A bony enlargement of the cannon bone or splint bone of a horse.
• transitive verb To support or restrict with or as if with a splint.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A variety of bituminous coal which is of a dull, stony luster and breaks in slab-like masses; splint-coal. It is contrasted with the shining variety or glance-coal, which breaks in cubes and which is often strongly coking, whereas splint-coal is not.
• To splinter; shiver.
• To join together, confine, or support by means of splints, as a broken limb.
• noun A piece of wood or other substance split off; a splinter.
• noun A thin flexible strip of wood (or metal) adapted to a particular use.
• noun In anatomy, a bone acting as a splint; a splint-bone.
• noun In farriery: Periostitis in the horse, involving the inner small and the large metacarpal or cannon-bone, rarely also the corresponding metatarsal bones. It is caused mainly by concussion, and sometimes leads to lameness.
• noun An exostosis of the splint-bone of a horse; a bony callus or excrescence on a horse's leg formed by periostitis of a splint-bone.
• noun Alburnum or sap-wood.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb Obs. or R. To split into splints, or thin, slender pieces; to splinter; to shiver.
• transitive verb rare To fasten or confine with splints, as a broken limb. See Splint, n., 2.
• noun A piece split off; a splinter.
• noun (Surg.) A thin piece of wood, or other substance, used to keep in place, or protect, an injured part, especially a broken bone when set.
• noun (Anat.) A splint bone.
• noun (Far.) A disease affecting the splint bones, as a callosity or hard excrescence.
• noun (Anc. Armor.) One of the small plates of metal used in making splint armor. See Splint armor, below.
• noun Splint, or splent, coal. See Splent coal, under Splent.
• noun a kind of ancient armor formed of thin plates of metal, usually overlapping each other and allowing the limbs to move freely.
• noun (Anat.) one of the rudimentary, splintlike metacarpal or metatarsal bones on either side of the cannon bone in the limbs of the horse and allied animals.
• noun See Splent coal, under Splent.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A narrow strip of wood split or peeled off of a larger piece.
• noun medicine A device to immobilize a body part.
• noun A dental device applied consequent to undergoing orthodontia.
• noun A segment of armor.
• noun A bone found on either side of the horse's cannon bone; second or fourth metacarpal (forelimb) or metatarsal (hindlimb) bone.
• verb transitive To apply a splint to; to fasten with splints.
• verb To support one's abdomen with hands or a pillow before attempting to cough.
• verb obsolete, rare, transitive To split into thin, slender pieces; to splinter.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun an orthopedic mechanical device used to immobilize and protect a part of the body (as a broken leg)
• verb support with a splint
• noun a thin sliver of wood