cleft

CEFRB2

/ˈklɛft/

noun · adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    A narrow opening or split in something.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Split or divided by a narrow opening.

Examples

  • O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

  • Tom has a cleft lip.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
2
Citations
4
Synonyms
1

Also pronounced

  • [ˈkʰl̥ɛft]

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. A disease of horses; a crack on the band of the pastern.

  2. A piece made by splitting.

  3. An opening, fissure, or V-shaped indentation made by or as if by splitting.

More examples

In context

  • The river flows through a cleft in the mountains.

  • a cleft of wood

  • Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him / Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim / Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Deep check

The mountain goat navigated the 'narrow blank in the rock face,' using specialized hooves on the vertical terrain.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Middle English clift, from Old English ġeclyft, from Proto-West Germanic *klufti, from Proto-Germanic *kluftiz, equivalent to cleave + -t (“-th”). Compare Dutch klucht (“coarse comedy”), Swedish klyft (“cave, den”), German Kluft. See cleave.