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
When it arrives, in simple letters against a black backdrop, it doesn’t so much introduce the film as cleave it in half.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 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
At once the ship began to cleave straight to the east, and the ship’s master began to look cheerful again.
From "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin
“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
He was himself afflicted by troubles and doubts, but clave to prayer and to Scripture, and especially to the words in Luke xi.;
From Dialogues on the Supersensual Life by Jakob Böhme
That’s why, if you don’t want your house cleaved in twain, diagnosing your trees is best left to a certified arborist.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026
And now at Royal Portrush in this year's Open Championship, Scheffler has cleaved open an advantage of four shots after 54 holes following a display of understated authority in the hazy Northern Irish sunshine.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2025
But within these macro trends, a divide has cleaved open.
From Slate ● Oct. 11, 2024
Now the American team was cleaved in half.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 17, 2023
Her knees buckled, and her vision swam, and she wondered for a moment if this was dying, whether she’d been cleaved in two.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
The researchers showed that the compound K11777 prevents host cells from helping the virus out of its shell by cleaving the viral capsid.
From Science Daily ● May 15, 2024
“Society of the Snow” is judicious in what we see of the actual cutting and cleaving.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2024
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
Their eyes were too clear for cleaving, intimate looks.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
"It was her leg which was stuck within a rock cleft, and there was some space around the side of it and also nodules of rock which were stopping it from coming out," Rees said.
From BBC ● Jun. 27, 2026
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
Reported problems include spina bifida, cleft palate, and a range of intellectual, communication, behavior and memory disorders.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 28, 2025
But he famously had a big cleft chin.
From Salon ● Dec. 19, 2023
But the night was not silent; the little tree frogs that lived near the stream twittered like birds, and the high metallic ringing of the cicadas filled the mountain cleft.
From "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck
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
Slice apples and roast them with avocado oil, brown sugar, and enough baking spices to make your kitchen smell like fall—cinnamon, cardamom, clove and ginger are all fair game.
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
Fewer were they but they clove through the Southrons like a fire-bolt in a forest.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Foot and mouth disease is a highly contagious virus that affects cloven hooved animals.
From Reuters ● Jul. 20, 2022
“Luckenbooth” starts in 1910 and creeps across the 20th century on cloven feet.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2021
“And in their most unmitigable rage into a cloven pine, within which rift imprisoned he didst painfully—”
From The New Yorker ● Jul. 8, 2019
“Its cats. Its pale sky. The empty sky of morning, drained and pure. Its deep, cloven streets. Its narrow courts, the faint, rotten odor within, orange peels lying in the corners.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 5, 2018
Each monster was about the size of a cow, with a bowed back like a broken-down horse, matted gray fur, skinny legs, and black cloven hooves.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
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.
