köken: 20th century, from Low German Spliss, Spließ, from the nautical verb splissen (“to splice; to fray the ends of ropes and tie them together”). The latter is cognate with Dutch splitsen (“to split”, older also splissen) and related with Proto-Germanic *splītaną, whence regional German spleißen (also used in the nautical sense above), Dutch splijten, English split.