splat

splat
    n 1: a single splash; "he heard a splat as it hit the floor"
    2: a slat of wood in the middle of the back of a straight chair
    v 1: give off the sound of a bullet flattening on impact
    2: split open and flatten for cooking; "splat fish over an open
       fire"
    3: flatten on impact; "The snowballs splatted on the trees"
    

splat
 n.

   1. Name used in many places (DEC, IBM, and others) for the asterisk
   (*) character (ASCII 0101010). This may derive from the `squashed-bug'
   appearance of the asterisk on many early line printers.

   2. [MIT] Name used by some people for the # character (ASCII 0100011).

   3. The {feature key} on a Mac (same as {alt}, sense 2).

   4. obs. Name used by some people for the Stanford/ITS extended ASCII
   (x) character. This character is also called blobby and frob, among
   other names; it is sometimes used by mathematicians as a notation for
   tensor product.

   5. obs. Name for the semi-mythical Stanford extended ASCII (+)
   character. See also {ASCII}.
    

splat

   1. Name used in many places (DEC, IBM, and others) for the
   asterisk ("*") character (ASCII 0101010).  This may derive
   from the "squashed-bug" appearance of the asterisk on many
   early line printers.

   2. Name used by some {MIT} people for the "#" character (ASCII
   35).

   3. (Rochester Institute of Technology) The {feature key} on a
   Mac (same as {alt}).

   4. An obsolete name used by some people for the
   {Stanford}/{ITS} {extended ASCII} circle-x character.  This
   character is also called "blobby" and "frob", among other
   names; it is sometimes used by mathematicians as a notation
   for "tensor product".

   5. An obsolete name for the semi-mythical {Stanford} {extended
   ASCII} circle-plus character.

   See also {ASCII}.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1995-01-19)
    

72 Moby Thesaurus words for "splat":
      bang, beam, billet, board, boarding, bump, burst, bust, clap,
      clapboard, clash, cord, cordwood, crack, crash, crump, deal,
      driftwood, firewood, flap, flop, hardwood, knock, lath, lathing,
      lathwork, log, lumber, panelboard, paneling, panelwork, plank,
      planking, plyboard, plywood, pole, post, puncheon, rap, report,
      shake, sheathing, sheathing board, sheeting, shingle, sideboard,
      siding, slab, slam, slap, slat, smack, softwood, stave, stick,
      stick of wood, stovewood, swap, tap, three-by-four, thwack, timber,
      timbering, timberwork, two-by-four, weatherboard, whack, wham,
      whap, whomp, whop, wood