calve

[kav, kahv]

verb (used without object)

calved, calving 

1. to give birth to a calf.

   The cow is expected to calve tomorrow.

2. (of a glacier, an iceberg, etc.) to break up or splinter so as to produce a detached piece.

verb (used with object)

calved, calving 

1. to give birth to (a calf ).

2. (of a glacier, an iceberg, etc.) to break off or detach (a piece).

   The glacier calved an iceberg.

calve

/ kɑːv /

verb

1. to give birth to (a calf)

2. (of a glacier or iceberg) to release (masses of ice) in breaking up

Word History and Origins

Origin of calve¹

before 1000; Middle English calven, Old English (Anglian) *calfian, derivative of calf calf ¹; cognate with Old English ( West Saxon ) cealfian

Example Sentences

Iceberg calving happens when large pieces of ice split from the front of a glacier and fall into the ocean.

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What followed was further loss of floating ice from the front of Hektoria, as large, flat-topped icebergs broke off or "calved", and the ice behind sped up and thinned.

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Some of the cows were “dried off” and wouldn’t be milked again until after the calving season.

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The icebergs are comparable in size to some of the smaller icebergs found off present-day Antarctica, such as blocks that calved from the Larsen B ice shelf in 2002.

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Climate change is unlikely to have been behind the birth of A23a because it calved so long ago, before much of the impacts of rising temperatures that we are now seeing.

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