cleave

Other forms of cleave

past tense or participle

cleft

past tense or participle

clove

past tense or participle

cloven

present participle

cleaving·

third person

cleaves·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about cleave

What does cleave mean?

cleave means "separate or cut with a tool, such as a sharp instrument". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in cleave?

cleave has 1 syllable: cleave. In IPA it is /ˈkliv/.

What is another word for cleave?

Close synonyms include split, rive, cling, adhere, stick. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is cleave a common word?

cleave is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.