cleave

verb

1. (transitive)To split or sever something with, or as if with, a sharp instrument.

   “The wings clove the foggy air.”

   “O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.”

   “Hee claue the rockes in the wildernes: and gaue them drinke as out of the great depthes.”

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:”

6. (intransitive)Of a crystal, to split along a natural plane of division.
7. (intransitive, rare)Followed by to or unto: to adhere, cling, or stick fast to something.

   “And they lift vp their voyce, and wept againe: and Orpah kissed her mother in law, but Ruth claue vnto her.”

   “Neuerthelesse, hee cleaued vnto the sinnes of Ieroboam the sonne of Nebat, which made Israel to sinne; he departed not therefrom.”

   “Yet not as therefore cruell things ſhould cleave / To gentle; not that vve ſhould Serpents ſee / VVith Doves; or Lambs vvith Tigres coupled be.”

   “He was in such a rage that his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He could not even swear. He could only splutter.”

   “"I only know that I love thee as I never loved before, and that I will cleave to thee to the end."”

noun

1. Flat, smooth surface produced by cleavage, or any similar surface produced by similar techniques, as in glass.
2. A cut (slash) or a cut location, either naturally or artificially.

   “The valley by which the Taw leaves the Moor forms one of the cleaves that add so greatly to the attractions of the place, and this bears the same name as the parish.”

   “Early the next morning, when there was a tender pink light upon all the moor, and the gentle wind was filled with the purest odours found upon earth, the smell of firs and peat and dewy heather, and the first sunbeams seemed to be creeping down the side of the cleave to drink of the river, poor ill-used John Petherick was evicted at last from Wheal Dream and went into the immortality which he could not think about.”

name

1. A surname.
2. A hamlet in Offwell parish, East Devon district, Devon, England, divided into Upper and Lower Cleave (OS grid ref ST2000).