calve
Americanverb (used without object)
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calves,
present (3rd person singular)
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calved,
past participle, past
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calving
present participle
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to give birth to a calf.
The cow is expected to calve tomorrow.
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(of a glacier, an iceberg, etc.) to break up or splinter so as to produce a detached piece.
verb (used with object)
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calves,
present (3rd person singular)
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calved,
past participle, past
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calving
present participle
-
to give birth to (a calf ).
-
(of a glacier, an iceberg, etc.) to break off or detach (a piece).
The glacier calved an iceberg.
verb
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to give birth to (a calf)
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(of a glacier or iceberg) to release (masses of ice) in breaking up
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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calvesimple
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calvessimple
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have calvedperfect
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has calvedperfect
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am calvingprogressive
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are calvingprogressive
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is calvingprogressive
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have been calvingperfect progressive
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has been calvingperfect progressive
Past
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calvedsimple
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had calvedperfect
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was calvingprogressive
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were calvingprogressive
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had been calvingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of calve
before 1000; Middle English calven, Old English (Anglian) *calfian, derivative of calf calf 1; cognate with Old English ( West Saxon ) cealfian
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:
The whales feast all summer long, and only then embark on a 6,000-mile journey south to Mexico, where females calve and nurse their young in the warm and protected inlets along the Baja Peninsula.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2024
As they seep and calve into the sea, melting glaciers and ice sheets are raising global water levels at unprecedented rates.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 3, 2024
These icebergs, some of them skyscraper-size, calve regularly from the glacier front, crash into a deep fiord and float west into Disko Bay.
From New York Times ● Jan. 6, 2024
Over 35,000 cubic metres of ice calve from the glacier each year, and more icebergs spew into Disko Bay than anywhere else in the northern hemisphere.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2022
There were three calves born when they corralled them, and two of the cows looked as if they would calve within a few days.
From "Ceremony:" by Leslie Marmon Silko
The last documented California grizzly killed was hunted down in August 1922 by a Tulare County rancher named Jesse Agnew, who blamed his dead calves on the grizzly.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
The rancher is selling calves for record sums, but is not better off because he has higher costs.
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026
“It couldn’t come at a worse time, as a lot of producers will be selling their calves over the next few months.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026
"Orcas often tear apart prey and share it with other members of the group, including calves and juveniles," said Ayres.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 23, 2026
We let the calves graze, fill their bellies.
From "Facing the Lion" by Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton and Herman Viola
The size and makeup of the particles also revealed that the main source of iron was not dust, but icebergs calved from West Antarctica.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 4, 2026
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.
From BBC ● Jan. 22, 2025
“We’ve had some pretty major erosion at archaeological sites of serious concern — we go out after storm events and sometimes see multiple feet of erosion, big chunks that have calved off at once.”
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 28, 2023
I grew up reading Scott's journals, I traced routes from Palmer Station to Queen Maude Land on a map, and I stared for hours at photographs of calved glaciers in the Minnesota Science Museum.
From Salon ● May 29, 2023
At the end of the long fjord their cove was on, icebergs calved off the ends of twelve or more glaciers with a roar throughout the days that sent birds screeching up into the air.
From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong
The summer 2026 calving was first identified on August 4 by Adam Garbo, a doctoral student in glaciology at the University of Ottawa, using imagery from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-1 mission.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 4, 2026
If both break away, the three calving events combined would remove approximately 254 km2 from Petermann Glacier's ice tongue, reducing it by about 22 percent.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026
Their crews are at risk if the ships are damaged, and the vessels could capsize if they are in the vicinity of giant ice chunks breaking off glaciers, a process called calving.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
An international team of researchers, led in part by the University of Ottawa, has documented a major calving event at Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 26, 2026
“Those are the humpbacks after herring. They’re following their instincts. Every spring they migrate up from calving grounds in Hawaii.”
From "Touching Spirit Bear" by Ben Mikaelsen
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.
