cleaver

American  

[klee-ver] / ˈkli vər /

noun

• cleavers
  plural

1. a heavy, broad-bladed knife or long-bladed hatchet, especially one used by butchers for cutting meat into joints or pieces.

2. a person or thing that cleaves.

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cleaver British  

/ ˈkliːvə /

noun

1. a heavy knife or long-bladed hatchet, esp one used by butchers

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cleaver Scientific  

/ klē′vər /

1. A bifacial stone tool flaked to produce a straight, sharp, relatively wide edge at one end. Cleavers are early core tools associated primarily with the Acheulian tool culture.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• cleavers
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of cleaver

First recorded in 1325–75, cleaver is from the Middle English word clevere. See cleave ², -er ¹

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Explanation

A cleaver is a large knife, used mainly by butchers. The blade of a cleaver is big and square. To cut a steak, you need a good, sharp knife. To cut larger parts of meat, you need something even more powerful: a cleaver (or chopper). Cleavers have fat, square blades and are used for cutting large hunks of meat. It can help you remember the meaning of this word if you know that to cleave is to separate. If you're not a butcher, you probably have no use for a cleaver (unless you're a villain in a horror movie).

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cleaver cleavers

"One afternoon as I walked in and looked at this, it seemed to me that it had transformed into a meat cleaver. A jumbo meat cleaver".

From BBC ● Feb. 24, 2026

At Wing, he serves sea cucumber inside a crispy spring roll, dramatically sliced tableside with a Chinese cleaver.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2025

A Santoku knife is a Japanese chef’s knife with small indentations along the straight blade, in the style of a Chinese slicing cleaver.

From Washington Times ● Jun. 9, 2023

The dirt along the riverbed today looks as though somebody took a cleaver to a chocolate cake.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 13, 2023

In one, a young boy is cutting down a cluster of palm fruits with a silver cleaver.

From "First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers" by Loung Ung

Then comes the sound, clams tossed in hot pans, cleavers pounding roast pork, a Cantonese rock ballad barely rising above the crowd.

From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026

During the last amnesty in 2006, people handed over more than 12,500 blades to police without facing criminal charges - they included machetes, swords, meat cleavers, bayonets and axes.

From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2026

Like sitcom employees, the Clyde’s cooks complain about how busy they are, and they look busy, smacking cleavers through heads of lettuce, slapping turkey slices onto waxed paper, and lavishly squeezing sauces all over them.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 23, 2022

Kinmen is now known for the production of meat cleavers carved out of strewn artillery shells.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 3, 2022

By the time I arrived, I had enough anger to fend off a thousand flying cleavers.

From "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan

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