riven

Verb (1)

rive (third-person singular simple present rives, present participle riving, simple past rived or rove or rave, past participle rived or rove or rave or riven)

1. (transitive, archaic except in past participle) To tear apart by force; to rend; to split; to cleave.
   • I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds / Have rived the knotty oaks[…]1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

   Synonyms:

   cleave, rend, split

2. (archaic, transitive) To pierce or cleave with a weapon.
   • And therwith she toke the swerd from her loue that lay ded and fylle to the ground in a swowne / And whan she aroos she made grete dole out of mesure / the whiche sorowe greued Balyn passyngly sore / and he wente vnto her for to haue taken the swerd oute of her hād but[…]sodenly she sette the...1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “vj”, in Le Morte Darthur, book II
3. (intransitive) To break apart; to split.
   • The varlet at his plaint was grieu'd so sore, / That his deepe wounded hart in two did riue[…].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
4. (rare, transitive) To burst open; explode; discharge.
   • Ten thousand French have ta'en the sacrament, To rive their dangerous artillery1821, William Shakespeare, James Boswell, Richard Farmer, The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare
5. To use a technique of splitting or sawing wood radially from a log (e.g. clapboards).

Verb (2)

rive

1. To land.

See all 9 meanings of rive