cleave
1 Americanverb (used without object)
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to adhere closely; stick; cling (usually followed byto ).
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to remain faithful (usually followed byto ).
to cleave to one's principles in spite of persecution.
verb (used with object)
-
to split or divide by or as if by a cutting blow, especially along a natural line of division, as the grain of wood.
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to make by or as if by cutting.
to cleave a path through the wilderness.
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to penetrate or pass through (air, water, etc.).
The bow of the boat cleaved the water cleanly.
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to cut off; sever.
to cleave a branch from a tree.
verb (used without object)
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to part or split, especially along a natural line of division.
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to penetrate or advance by or as if by cutting (usually followed bythrough ).
verb
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to split or cause to split, esp along a natural weakness
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(tr) to make by or as if by cutting
to cleave a path
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to penetrate or traverse
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cleave1
First recorded before 900; Middle English cleven, Old English cleofian, clifian, cognate with Old High German klebēn, German kleben
Origin of cleave2
First recorded before 950; Middle English cleven, Old English clēofan, cognate with Old High German klioban, German klieben, Old Norse kljūfa; akin to Greek glýphein “to carve,” Latin glūbere “to peel”
Explanation
Cleave, a verb, has two very different meanings. It can describe cutting or splitting something apart with a sharp instrument, or — oddly enough — it can describe sticking to something like glue. To cleave or not to cleave, that is the question. Cleave can refer to being in close contact, to staying really, really close to someone or something: "If you are walking in the pitch-black woods without a flashlight, you want to cleave to the person in front of you." On the other hand, it can mean to split apart with a sharp tool — which is not the action you want to happen while walking in the woods. We've seen that movie.
Vocabulary lists containing cleave
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But once you’ve sorted these details, you and your arborist can make your trees safer, healthier, more lovable, and less likely to cleave.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026
They are free to rein in the state legislature as long as they cleave reasonably close to their state constitutions and do not step outside interpretation into pure improvisation.
From Slate ● Nov. 26, 2025
The films of the 1960s and ’70s that made Redford an icon mostly cleave into two categories: scamps and truth-seekers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2025
Viral genome sequences indicate the teen was infected with the type of H5N1 typically found in wild birds and that it had mutated to better cleave to the respiratory tract.
From Salon ● Dec. 6, 2024
“By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones cleave to my flesh...”
From "Between Shades of Gray" by Ruta Sepetys
“Hey There Little Insect,” an impish folk-rocker, begs bugs not to bite, incorporating Bo Diddley’s signature clave rhythm.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Hints of Cuban clave rhythms, Tin Pan Alley harmonies, Jewish melodies and piano licks swim through its overarching Romantic theme.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2024
But Mark Morris, perched on a stool and clacking out the rhythm with a pair of clave sticks, finds plenty to quarrel with as he oversees this rehearsal of his new work.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 21, 2022
You can see why radio likes it—the song is seriously insinuating, milking a jazzy Afro-Cuban piano clave better than anything this side of ’90s house.
From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2018
Some name trembled on every lip, and each one of us longed to shout a question: but tongue clave to palate, lips were too dry to open.
From The Claw by Cynthia Stockley
Another two in the fifth end cleaved open the advantage again before the teams traded points in the next two to leave Sweden needing four in the final end to win.
From BBC ● Feb. 6, 2026
A company that has had its growth prospects cleaved off could see its equity valuation plummet, but it could also still be collecting steady checks from existing customers, making it a safer credit.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026
But within these macro trends, a divide has cleaved open.
From Slate ● Oct. 11, 2024
But I can’t remember anyone mentioning the last one, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in 1999 that killed more than 2,000 people and cleaved the pavement outside of my uncle’s 7-Eleven store in Taichung.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 6, 2024
Yao yanked the string of the outboard motor, and its roar split the night while its prow cleaved the water ahead of us and its rear left a trail that glimmered in the flashlights’ beams.
From "Flying Through Water" by Mamle Wolo
“Society of the Snow” is judicious in what we see of the actual cutting and cleaving.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2024
Using a cleaving enzyme derived from a family of viruses, the researchers developed a synthetic enzyme that could be directed to cut specific amino acids from Vg1 in the zebrafish embryo.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 9, 2023
First, his job is to act as an impartial observer, obeying the rules of forensic archaeology and cleaving to hard data.
From National Geographic ● Oct. 23, 2023
Polygon's Oli Welsh had a similar take, observing that Rebirth's gameplay felt like it was "expanding the scope, adding features, but cleaving close to what made the first game tick".
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2023
After a day of cleaving rock salt from the innards of the mountain, finding him standing there with six guards hadn’t improved her mood.
From "Throne of Glass" by Sarah J. Maas
The medical term for my ailment is an asymmetrical gluteal cleft, though requests to fix it are far less common than those to eliminate cellulite, flatten the tummy, or augment the breasts.
From Slate ● Feb. 22, 2026
Waiting lists for gynae mesh, children's squints, children's feeding tubes and cleft lip will also be tackled.
From BBC ● Jun. 2, 2025
She’s desperate to find a refuge for herself, “a cleft in the rock of the world” that she could hide in, as she tells him after her secrets have been exposed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2025
“It certainly happened to me,” said Schimberg, who has a cleft palate.
From Salon ● Sep. 21, 2024
Losing her was like being cleft down the middle.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
An illustration shows middle C having the scent of a rose; the C two octaves higher, jasmine; in the rumbly bass, clove and vanilla.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
The eels are sedated using clove oil so that Dr Evans and his PhD student group can easily measure them.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2025
Cinnamon, cardamom, clove, ginger — all are welcome here.
From Salon ● May 6, 2025
One woman arrived with a clove of garlic and placed it down on the table before she started talking.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 10, 2024
Now I can make every knot he knows, even the clove hitch, which I did backward for a few months before I got it right.
From "When You Reach Me" by Rebecca Stead
Foot and mouth disease is a highly contagious virus that affects cloven hooved animals.
From Reuters ● Jul. 20, 2022
Made with both graphite and acrylic, the busy scenes achieve an entrancing variety of tones: acres of newspaper gray, crinkling across the drawings’ shallow perspective, are periodically cloven by a sudden swath of velvety black.
From New York Times ● Sep. 9, 2021
The name of a police officer who supposedly investigated the cloven footprints in the snow was made up.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 16, 2021
In his short story “Ordeal by Golf,” the narrator declares, “In no other walk of life does the cloven hoof so quickly display itself.”
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 3, 2019
After a while they plunged into a deeply cloven track between tall trees that rustled their dry leaves in the night.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
