break vs split

break

noun
  • An instance of breaking something into two or more pieces. 

  • The transition area between a singer's vocal registers; the passaggio. 

  • A significant change in circumstance, attitude, perception, or focus of attention. 

  • An interval or intermission between two parts of a performance, for example a theatre show, broadcast, or sports game. 

  • A place where waves break (that is, where waves pitch or spill forward creating white water). 

  • A sharp bit or snaffle. 

  • The number of points scored by one player in one visit to the table. 

  • An area along a river that features steep banks, bluffs, or gorges (e.g., Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, US). 

  • A section of extended repetition of the percussion break to a song, created by a hip-hop DJ as rhythmic dance music. 

  • A temporary split with a romantic partner. 

  • The point in the musical scale at which a woodwind instrument is designed to overblow, that is, to move from its lower to its upper register. 

  • A change, particularly the end of a spell of persistent good or bad weather. 

  • A keystroke or other signal that causes a program to terminate or suspend execution. 

  • A scheduled interval of days or weeks between periods of school instruction; a holiday. 

  • A rest or pause, usually from work. 

  • The counter-attack. 

  • A short holiday. 

  • A physical space that opens up in something or between two things. 

  • A sudden fall in prices on the stock exchange. 

  • The beginning (of the morning). 

  • A game won by the receiving player(s). 

  • An act of escaping. 

  • The first shot in a game of billiards. 

  • The curve imparted to the ball's motion on the green due to slope or grass texture. 

  • A time for students to talk or play between lessons. 

  • The separation between lines, paragraphs or pages of a written text. 

  • The start of a horse race. 

  • A short section of music, often between verses, in which some performers stop while others continue. 

verb
  • To go down, in terms of temperature, indicating that the most dangerous part of the illness has passed. 

  • To become deeper at puberty. 

  • To terminate the execution of a program before normal completion. 

  • To become weakened in constitution or faculties; to lose health or strength. 

  • To interrupt or cease one's work or occupation temporarily; to go on break. 

  • To make an abrupt or sudden change; to change gait. 

  • To demote; to reduce the military rank of. 

  • To counter-attack. 

  • To burst forth; to make its way; to come into view. 

  • To open (a safe) without using the correct key, combination, or the like. 

  • To become audible suddenly. 

  • To interrupt; to destroy the continuity of; to dissolve or terminate. 

  • To be crushed, or overwhelmed with sorrow or grief. 

  • To turn an animal into a beast of burden. 

  • Of prices on the stock exchange: to fall suddenly. 

  • To cause the shell of (an egg) to crack, so that the inside (yolk) is accessible. 

  • To cause (a barrier) to no longer bar. 

  • To ruin financially. 

  • To disclose or make known an item of news, a band, etc. 

  • To change a steady state abruptly. 

  • To surpass or do better than (a specific number); to do better than (a record), setting a new record. 

  • To destroy the official character and standing of; to cashier; to dismiss. 

  • To end the run of (a play). 

  • To render (a game) unchallenging by altering its rules or exploiting loopholes or weaknesses in them in a way that gives a player an unfair advantage. 

  • To cause (some feature of a program or piece of software) to stop functioning properly; to cause a regression. 

  • To destroy the arrangement of; to throw into disorder; to pierce. 

  • To (attempt to) disengage and flee to; to make a run for. 

  • To begin or end. 

  • To suddenly become. 

  • To win a game (against one's opponent) as receiver. 

  • To make the first shot; to scatter the balls from the initial neat arrangement. 

  • To demulsify. 

  • To end (a connection); to disconnect. 

  • To destroy the strength, firmness, or consistency of. 

  • To divide (something, often money) into smaller units. 

  • To arrive. 

  • To cause (a person or animal) to lose spirit or will; to crush the spirits of. 

  • To interrupt (a fall) by inserting something so that the falling object does not (immediately) hit something else beneath. 

  • To separate into two or more pieces, to fracture or crack, by a process that cannot easily be reversed for reassembly. 

  • To crack or fracture (bone) under a physical strain. 

  • To stop, or to cause to stop, functioning properly or altogether. 

  • To alter in type due to emotion or strain: in men, generally to go up, in women, sometimes to go down; to crack. 

  • To collapse into surf, after arriving in shallow water. 

  • To end. 

  • To remove one of the two men on (a point). 

  • To suspend the execution of a program during debugging so that the state of the program can be investigated. 

  • To violate; to fail to adhere to. 

  • To cause, or allow the occurrence of, a line break. 

  • To B-boy; to breakdance. 

split

noun
  • A piece that is split off, or made thin, by splitting; a splinter; a fragment. 

  • A dessert or confection resembling a banana split. 

  • A workout routine as seen by its distribution of muscle groups or the extent and manner they are targeted in a microcycle. 

  • The elapsed time at specific intermediate points in a race. 

  • A recording containing songs by multiple artists. 

  • A bottle of wine containing 37.5 centiliters, half the volume of a standard 75-centiliter bottle; a demi. 

  • A division of a stake happening when two cards of the kind on which the stake is laid are dealt in the same turn. 

  • A tear resulting from tensile stresses. 

  • A split-finger fastball. 

  • A result of a first throw that leaves two or more pins standing with one or more pins between them knocked down. 

  • The elapsed time at specific intermediate points in a speedrun. 

  • A unit of measure used for champagne or other spirits: 18.75 centiliters or one quarter of a standard 75-centiliter bottle. Commercially comparable to ¹⁄₂₀ (US) gallon, which is ¹⁄₂ of a fifth. 

  • A maneuver of spreading or sliding the feet apart until the legs are flat on the floor 180 degrees apart, either sideways to the body or with one leg in front and one behind, thus lowering the body completely to the floor in an upright position. 

  • One of the sections of a skin made by dividing it into two or more thicknesses. 

  • A split shot or split stroke. 

  • A crack or longitudinal fissure. 

  • A breach or separation, as in a political party; a division. 

verb
  • To factor into linear factors. 

  • To separate. 

  • To leave. 

  • To be broken; to be dashed to pieces. 

  • To vote for candidates of opposite parties. 

  • For both teams involved in a doubleheader to win one game each and lose another. 

  • To break along the grain fully or partly along a more or less straight line. 

  • To share; to divide. 

  • To burst out laughing. 

  • To divide fully or partly along a more or less straight line. 

  • To (cause to) break up; to throw into discord. 

adj
  • Comprising half decaffeinated and half caffeinated espresso. 

  • Given in sixteenths rather than eighths. 

  • Divided. 

  • Having the middle group equal to the direct product of the others. 

  • Designating ordinary stock that has been divided into preferred ordinary and deferred ordinary. 

  • Divided so as to be done or executed part at one time or price and part at another time or price. 

How often have the words break and split occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )