Shide

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A thin, flat slice or sliver of wood, often split off from a larger piece of timber
2. A narrow shred or splinter of wood, the kind cut or split from a plank or board
3. Describing a thin strip of wood, a chip or slat that has been pared away from timber

Etymology: Shide began life as a humble piece of timber. In Old English, "sċīd" meant a thin slip of wood, a shingle or billet, and the Middle English forms "schyd" and "schide" kept the sense of a plank, board, beam, or splinter. Its ultimate root, a Proto-Indo-European verb meaning "to cut, divide, or split," points to the act of splitting logs that produced such pieces in the first place. The most surprising link is the word "ski." The two are doublets: they descend from the same Proto-Germanic source, "*skīdą," which meant a log, plank, or tile. Over the centuries the Scandinavian branch developed a sense of a wooden shoe, sole, or skate, and that path eventually led to the modern runner for snow, while the English form stayed attached to the plain piece of wood. Cognates in German ("Scheit," a log) and Icelandic ("skíð," a billet of wood) preserve the older meaning.