cleft
/ˈklɛft/ noun, verb, adjective
Also a form of cleave
Forms clefts clefting clefted
- noun An opening, fissure, or V-shaped indentation made by or as if by splitting. “The river flows through a cleft in the mountains.”
- noun A piece made by splitting. “a cleft of wood”
- noun A disease of horses; a crack on the band of the pastern.
- verb (linguistics) To syntactically separate a prominent constituent from the rest of the clause that concerns it, such as threat in "The threat which I saw but which he didn't see, was his downfall."
- adjective split, divided, or partially divided into two.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English clift, from Old English ġeclyft, from Proto-West Germanic *klufti, from Proto-Germanic *kluftiz, equivalent to cleave + -t (“-th”). Compare Dutch klucht (“coarse comedy”), Swedish klyft (“cave, den”), German Kluft. See cleave.
Webster’s 1913
- verb from Cleave.
- adjective Divided; split; partly divided or split.
- adjective Incised nearly to the midrob; as, a cleft leaf.
- noun A space or opening made by splitting; a crack; a crevice; as, the cleft of a rock. Is. ii. 21.
Etymology [OE. clift; cf. Sw. klyft cave, den, Icel. kluft cleft, Dan. klöft, G. kluft. See Cleave to split and cf. 2d Clift, 1st Clough.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “cleft”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details