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splat

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splat¹

  • /splæt/

Rhymes with -æt

Where it comes from

From earlier splat (“to spread flat”), from Middle English splatten, splaten (“to stretch out, extend", also "to split”). Compare dialectal English splat (“flat”).

noun splats

  1. The narrow wooden centre piece of a chair back.

    Similar: backsplat

splat²

  • /splæt/

Rhymes with -æt

Where it comes from

Onomatopoeic.

noun splats

  1. The sharp, atonal sound of a liquid or soft solid hitting a solid surface. I didn't see the egg fall, but I heard the splat when it hit the floor.
  2. The irregular shape of a viscous liquid or soft solid which has hit a solid surface. The canvas was covered by seemingly careless splats of paint.
  3. slang The Command key on an Apple Macintosh.
  4. slang The asterisk *
  5. slang The hash symbol #
  6. An operator indicating a variable-length argument list, often denoted by * or .... It consists of three dots or periods preceding the last (or only) parameter in the function signature. The splat operator converts the values passed to the function into an array, which can then be used inside the function […]
  7. An operator which takes a scalar value and creates a vector in which each element is initialized to that value. For example, "broadcast" (sometimes called "splat") makes a vector whose lanes are all the same scalar, like Rust's [42; N] array literal.
  8. A move in playboating involving stalling in place while positioned vertically against a solid object in the water.
  9. A children's game in which one person, in the centre of a circle of players, points and says "SPLAT!" at another player. That player then ducks down and the two players either side of them point and say "SPLAT!". The slowest to react is and eliminated from the game. The final is settled by a Mexican standoff.
  10. abbreviation, ellipsis Ellipsis of Gaussian splat

verb splats · splatting · splatted

  1. intransitive To hit a flat surface and deform into an irregular shape. The egg splatted onto the floor.
  2. transitive To splatter. She splatted the roach with her shoe.
  3. transitive To combine different textures by applying an alpha channel map to the higher levels, revealing the layers underneath where the map is partially or completely transparent. Figure 6: Checkerboard rendering using two different screen space surface splatting algorithms.

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MLA

"splat." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/splat. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

splat. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/splat

Chicago

"splat." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/splat.

BibTeX
@misc{splat_2026,
  title = {splat},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/splat},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}