Pronunciations (2)
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/ˈklɛft/
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[ˈkʰl̥ɛft]
Noun
An opening, fissure, or V-shaped indentation made by or as if by splitting.
- Examples
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The river flows through a cleft in the mountains.
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.
More examples (1)
First of all they released the arms from the bodies, then making four clefts at the end of each arm they fashioned hands and fingers.
A piece made by splitting.
- Examples
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a cleft of wood
A disease of horses; a crack on the band of the pastern.
Verb
To syntactically separate a prominent constituent from the rest of the clause that concerns it, such as threat in "The threat which I saw but which he didn't see, was his downfall."
- Related words
- Examples
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More examples (1)
This may be so because in most languages the most natural clefting involves NP's, and it is in fact hard in most languages to cleft the verb, although some — notably Kwa languages in West-Africa — allow such clefting.
When the affected object is clefted, the clefted constituent may be assigned a contrastive reading on the event denoted by the clause, as is shown in (62).
The strategy the language employs is to cleft the clause containing the wh-phrase, as exemplified in (3) […]
Adjective
split, divided, or partially divided into two.
Usage- not-comparable
- Synonyms
Adjective
split or divided
- Examples
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he had a cleft chin and strong jaw
the infant was born with a double harelip and cleft palate
More examples (1)
a cleft stick
having one or more indentations reaching nearly to the midrib
- Synonyms
Noun
a split or indentation in something (as the palate or chin)
- Broader terms
a long narrow cleft