cleave
/ˈkliːv/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.85 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To break a single crystal (such as a gemstone or semiconductor wafer) along one of its more symmetrical crystallographic planes (often by impact), forming facets on the resulting pieces.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "The wings clove the foggy air."
- "Some clock clove with silver the stillness of the morning. Ere came the second stroke, another and nearer clock was striking. And now there were others chiming in. The air was confused with the sweet babel of its many spires, some of them booming deep, measured sequences, some tinkling impatiently and outwitting others which had begun before them. And when this anthem of jealous antiphonies and uneven rhythms had dwindled quite away and fainted in one last solitary note of silver, there started somewhere another sequence; and this, almost at its last stroke, was interrupted by yet another, which went on to tell the hour of noon in its own way, quite slowly and significantly, as though none knew it."
- "O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain."
- "Hee claue the rockes in the wildernes: and gaue them drinke as out of the great depthes."
- "The truck clove a path through the ice."
- "And it came to passe as he had made an ende of speaking all these words, that the ground claue asunder that was vnder them:"
Etymology
From Middle English cleven, from the Old English strong verb clēofan (“to split, to separate”), from Proto-West Germanic *kleuban, from Proto-Germanic *kleubaną, from Proto-Indo-European *glewbʰ- (“to cut, to slice”). Doublet of clive. Cognate with Dutch klieven, dialectal German klieben, Swedish klyva, Norwegian Nynorsk kløyva; also Ancient Greek γλύφω (glúphō, “carve”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *glewbʰ-, cleven, -, *kleuban, *kleubaną, *gleybʰ-