View synonyms for cleft

cleft

[ kleft ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

a space or opening made by cleavage; a split.
Synonyms: crevasse, chasm, cranny, rift, crack, crevice, fissure
a division formed by cleaving. cleave.
a hollow area or indentation:
a chin with a cleft.
Veterinary Pathology. a crack on the bend of the pastern of a horse.

cleft

[ kleft ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

cloven; cleave; cloven; split; divided.
(of a leaf, corolla, lobe, or other expanded plant part) having divisions formed by incisions or narrow sinuses that extend more than halfway to the midrib or the base.

cleft

/ klɛft /

Origin of cleft¹

1300–50; Middle English clift, Old English ( ge ) clyft split, cracked; cognate with Old High German, Old Norse kluft; akin to cleave ²

Origin of cleft²

Origin of cleft¹

Old English geclyft (n); related to Old High German kluft tongs, German Kluft gap, fissure; see cleave ¹

Like the Korean Peninsula, Illinois is cleft into two parts: Chicagoland and “downstate.”

He pretended that it was five hundred years' journey from one to another, and that he cleft the moon in twain.

So I even told her how he had gone over the edge into the cleft, but without saying that we feared for his life for so long.

Thrice—De Valmont's guard shivered as a rush—through shield, hauberk, gorget cleft the Vikings' blade.

Point a pitying finger to the yawning abyss of shame, ruin, and despair that even now perhaps is being cleft under his feet.

But a single effective shot into the centre of the column had cleft it as a rock divides a torrent.

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