cleft

1. 1.

   split or divided

   “he had a cleft chin and strong jaw”

   “the infant was born with a double harelip and cleft palate”

   “a cleft stick”

   Similardivided
2. 2.

   having one or more indentations reaching nearly to the midrib

   Synonymsdissected

   Similarcompound

Other forms of cleft

plural

clefts·

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 cleft

What does cleft mean?

cleft means "a split or indentation in something (as the palate or chin)". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in cleft?

cleft has 1 syllable: cleft. In IPA it is /ˈklɛft/.

What is another word for cleft?

Close synonyms include crack, crevice, fissure, scissure, dissected. 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 cleft a common word?

cleft 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.