Cleave

/kliːv/ · verb

Meaning

(transitive) To split or sever something with, or as if with, a sharp instrument..

Definitions by Sense

1. (transitive) To split or sever something with, or as if with, a sharp instrument.
2. (transitive, mineralogy) 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.
3. (transitive) To make or accomplish by or as if by cutting.
4. (transitive) (chemistry) To split (a complex molecule) into simpler molecules.
5. (intransitive) To split.
6. (intransitive, mineralogy) Of a crystal, to split along a natural plane of division.
7. (technology) Flat, smooth surface produced by cleavage, or any similar surface produced by similar techniques, as in glass.
8. A cut (slash) or a cut location, either naturally or artificially.

Example Sentences

The wings clove the foggy air.

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:

There are very striking scenes on some of the lesser streams at this portion of their course. The deep gorge of the Lyd is famous. In the "cleaves," or cleft rocky valleys of Lustleigh and of the Tavy, many a long summer day may be spent with delight; and the Erme, which descends by Ivy Bridge, is not less worthy of a pilgrimage. As the rivers leave the moorland they are crossed by venerable and picturesque bridges which, like that of Harford in our illustration, sometimes afford an admirable framework for the distant landscape.

The valley by which the Taw leaves the Moor forms one of the cleaves that add so greatly to the attractions of the place, and this bears the same name as the parish.

Early the next morning, when there was a tender pink light upon all the moor, and the gentle wind was filled with the purest odours found upon earth, the smell of firs and peat and dewy heather, and the first sunbeams seemed to be creeping down the side of the cleave to drink of the river, poor ill-used John Petherick was evicted at last from Wheal Dream and went into the immortality which he could not think about.

Synonyms for cleave

Antonyms for cleave

Related Words

Word Forms

• cleaves
• cleaving
• cleft
• clove
• cleaved
• clave
• cloven

Usage Notes

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