split p ppl DC ~ a 3 (1890).
1 Of cod-fish, with head and guts removed and backbone sliced, open and flat for salting and drying.
1964 BLONDAHL (ed) 14 "Hard, Hard Times": When you've got some [fish] split and hung out for to dry, / It will take all your time for to brush off the fly; / To brush off the flies it is more than you'll do, / Then out comes the sun and she all splits in two. 1975 BUTLER 36 [I suggested we go to] Merasheen and buy fresh split fish and salt it on board.
2 Of herring or mackerel, prepared for curing in a variety of ways involving removal of gill and gut.
1941 SMALLWOOD 272 Herring ... Pickled, Split. 1975 BUTLER 73, 75 There'd be other packs. There was split herring; they'd be cleaned right out... Now in the spring ... they'd pack 'em for the West India market and they would be split herring... It would take one hundred and sixty split mackerel to fill one barrel and two hundred and thirty five when filleted.
3 Hence n: a variety of 'cure' or method of processing (herring, mackerel).
1953 Nfld Fish Develop Report 46 In the United States, and generally throughout North America ... the market for the traditional splits and 'Scotch'-cure has all but disappeared.
4 Phr split-tail coat: swallow-tail coat.
1924 ENGLAND 143 It was Hickson who once, when he had an infected finger, called for a'tom'awk' and implacably chopped that finger off, 'standin' dere on cle ship's brudge, sir, bare-handed an' in a green split-tail coat.'
