sliver

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A slender piece cut, split, or broken off; a splinter.
• noun A small narrow piece, portion, or plot.
• noun A continuous strand of loose fiber, such as wool, flax, silk, or cotton, ready to be roved or spun.
• transitive & intransitive verb To split or become split into slivers.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A piece, as of wood, roughly or irregularly broken, rent, or cut off or out, generally lengthwise or with the grain; a splinter: as, to get a sliver under one's fingernail; the lightning tore off great slivers of bark; hence, any fragment; a small bit.
• noun In spinning, a continuous strand of wool, cotton, or other fiber, in a loose untwisted condition, ready for slubbing or roving.
• noun A small wooden instrument used in spinning yarn.
• noun The side of a small fish cut off in one piece from head to tail, to be used as bait; a sort of kibblings.
• noun A very fine edge left at the end of a piece of timber.
• noun plural The loose breeches or slops of the early part of the seventeenth century.
• To cut or divide into long thin pieces, or into very small pieces; cut or rend lengthwise; splinter; break or tear off.
• To cut each side of (a fish) away in one piece from head to tail; take two slivers from. See sliver, n., 4.
• To split; become split.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• transitive verb To cut or divide into long, thin pieces, or into very small pieces; to cut or rend lengthwise; to slit.
• noun A long piece cut or rent off; a sharp, slender fragment, as of glass; a splinter.
• noun A strand, or slender roll, of cotton or other fiber in a loose, untwisted state, produced by a carding machine and ready for the roving or slubbing which preceeds spinning.
• noun Local, U.S. Bait made of pieces of small fish. Cf. Kibblings.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A long piece cut or rent off; a sharp, slender fragment; a splinter.
• noun A strand, or slender roll, of cotton or other fiber in a loose, untwisted state, produced by a carding machine and ready for the roving or slubbing which precedes spinning.
• noun Bait made of pieces of small fish. Compare kibblings.
• noun US, New York A narrow high-rise apartment building.
• verb transitive To cut or divide into long, thin pieces, or into very small pieces; to cut or rend lengthwise; to slit; as, to sliver wood.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb break up into splinters or slivers
• verb form into slivers
• noun a small thin sharp bit or wood or glass or metal
• noun a thin fragment or slice (especially of wood) that has been shaved from something
• verb divide into slivers or splinters