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)
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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:
When the wind blows hard, and their branches and boughs thrash and creak, I am convinced they will topple over and cleave my home in twain.
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
The Scottish Premiership leaders enjoyed almost 70% possession but struggled to cleave out clear chances against a Croatian side hampered by injuries.
From BBC ● Dec. 10, 2024
He felt his tongue cleave to his mouth, and his heart labouring.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
“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
The four pieces clave to four stones, which are for witness of the apostolic triumph to this day.
From The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church Containing the Sermones Catholici, or Homilies of ?lfric, in the Original Anglo-Saxon, with an English Version. Volume I. by Abbot of Eynsham Aelfric
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
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
But within these macro trends, a divide has cleaved open.
From Slate ● Oct. 11, 2024
An agreement has defied numerous, U.N.-facilitated rounds of talks since 1974 when the island was cleaved along ethnic lines following a Turkish invasion preceded by a coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece.
From Seattle Times ● May 15, 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
It can be made cleanly by cleaving the hydrogen out of water using clean electricity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
RNA silencing, also known as RNA interference, is a way that plants and invertebrate animals can protect themselves from viruses by cleaving viral RNA to repress viral replication.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 19, 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
In desperation I uncapped Riptide and slashed at the fountain, cleaving it in two.
From "The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan
When she was five months pregnant, ultrasound examinations revealed that the fetus had a cleft palate, a brain cyst, and heart defects.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
Three-month-old Sana, the youngest baby on the ward, has malnutrition, acute diarrhoea and a cleft lip.
From BBC ● Sep. 21, 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
Take lamotrigine, for instance: In the early 2000s, animal trials indicated that it could increase conditions like cleft palate, but later studies found no such link, reassuring clinicians.
From Salon ● Sep. 10, 2024
“No one ever said it was a cleft palate,” I said to her.
From "Auggie & Me" by R. J. Palacio
A middle C would smell like a rose; bass notes like 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
Spices vary greatly and the last thing you want is a mole that is overpowered with cinnamon, allspice, clove, etc.
From Salon ● Jan. 4, 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
In the video, the singer has deer horns and cloven hooves.
From New York Times ● Nov. 12, 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
“And, for thou wast a spirit too deli-cate/To act her earthy and abhorr’d commands ... /she did confine thee. . . into a cloven pine—” he whispered, and Meg recognized Mrs Who’s words to him.
From "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle
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.
