Word.ws English Dictionary

split S

split S noun: an aerobatic maneuver in which an aircraft, starting from upright level flight, rolls inverted and then performs one-half of an inside loop, ending up in upright level flight in the opposite direction at a lower altitude; equivalent to an Immelmann turn (modern sense) performed in reverse.

split s: an aerobatic maneuver in which an aircraft, starting from upright level flight, rolls inverted and...
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Noun

split S (plural split Ses)

  1. An aerobatic maneuver in which an aircraft, starting from upright level flight, rolls inverted and then performs one-half of an inside loop, ending up in upright level flight in the opposite direction at a lower altitude; equivalent to an Immelmann turn (modern sense) performed in reverse.

Forms of split S

pluralsplit Ses
alternative formsplit-S

Origin of split S

Named for the resemblance of the aircraft's flightpath to the upper or lower half of the letter S (an aircraft performing two split Ses in sequence, with the first split S leading immediately into the second, would trace out a flightpath in the shape of a vertical S).

Questions about split S

What does split S mean?
Split S means an aerobatic maneuver in which an aircraft, starting from upright level flight, rolls inverted and then performs one-half of an inside loop, ending up in upright level flight in the opposite direction at a lower altitude; equivalent to an Immelmann turn (modern sense) performed in reverse.
What part of speech is split S?
Split S is a noun.
What is the plural of split S?
The plural of split S is split Ses.

Words near split S in the dictionary

  1. split rail fences
  2. split rails
  3. split rim
  4. split rims
  5. split rock
  6. split S
  7. split screen
  8. split screen shot
  9. split screen shots
  10. split screens
  11. split second

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: split S (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “split S.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/split_s. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.