cleft

Wikipedia

English

Etymology

Old English clift; compare Swedish klyft (“cave, den”) cave, den, German Kluft. See cleave.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛft

Noun

cleft (plural clefts)

1. An opening, fissure, or V-shaped indentation made by or as if by splitting.
2. A piece made by splitting.

   a cleft of wood

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

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.

Derived terms

terms derived from cleft (noun)

anal cleft Cleft of Venus cleft chin cleft grafting cleft foot

cleft lip cleft palate cleft stick gluteal cleft

Related terms

terms related to cleft (noun)

cleave cleavage

cleaver

See also

• dimple

Translations

opening made or as if made by splitting

• Bulgarian: цепнатина (bg) f (cepnatina), цепка (bg) f (cepka)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 裂縫 (cmn), 裂缝 (cmn) (lièfèng)

• Finnish: lovi (fi)
• French: fissure (fr) f
• German: Spalte (de) f
• Hebrew: שסע (he) m, בקע (he) m
• Italian: fessura (it)
• Japanese: 裂け目 (ja) (さけめ, sakeme), 割れ目 (ja) (われめ, wareme)
• Korean: 골 (ko) (gol), 샅 (ko) (sat)

• Polish: szczelina (pl) f
• Portuguese: rachadura (pt) f, fissura (pt) f, partido (pt) m
• Russian: расщелина (ru) (rasščélina) f , трещина (ru) (tréščina) f , расселина (ru) (rassélina) f 
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: пукотина (sh) f

  Roman: pukotina (sh) f

• Spanish: hendidura (es) f
• Swedish: klyfta (sv) c, spricka (sv)
• Turkish: yarık (tr)

Verb

cleft

1. simple past tense and past participle of cleave