cleaves

Verb

cleave (third-person singular simple present cleaves, present participle cleaving, simple past cleft or clove or (UK) cleaved or (archaic) clave, past participle cleft or clove or (UK) cleaved or (archaic) clave or cloven)

1. (transitive) To split or sever something with, or as if with, a sharp instrument.
   • The wings clove the foggy air.

   Synonyms:

   rive

2. (transitive) To break a single crystal (such as a gemstone or semiconductor wafer) along one of its more symmetrical crystallographic planes (often by impact), forming facets on the resulting pieces.
3. (transitive) To make or accomplish by or as if by cutting.
   • The truck clove a path through the ice.
4. (transitive) (chemistry) To split (a complex molecule) into simpler molecules.
5. (intransitive) To split.
   • And it came to passe as he had made an ende of speaking all these words, that the ground claue asunder that was vnder them:1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Numbers 16:31
6. (intransitive) Of a crystal, to split along a natural plane of division.

See all 11 meanings of cleave