clove

1. 1.

   aromatic flower bud of a clove tree; yields a spice

   Broaderflower bud
2. 2.

   moderate sized very symmetrical red-flowered evergreen widely cultivated in the tropics for its flower buds which are source of cloves

   Synonymsclove treeSyzygium aromaticumEugenia aromaticumEugenia caryophyllatum

   Broaderspice tree

   Part ofSyzygium
3. 3.

   one of the small bulblets that can be split off of the axis of a larger garlic bulb

   Synonymsgarlic clove

   Broadergarlic
4. 4.

   spice from dried unopened flower bud of the clove tree; used whole or ground

   Broaderspice

Other forms of clove

plural

cloves·

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 clove

What does clove mean?

clove means "aromatic flower bud of a clove tree; yields a spice". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in clove?

clove has 1 syllable: clove. In IPA it is /ˈkloʊv/.

What is another word for clove?

Close synonyms include clove tree, Syzygium aromaticum, Eugenia aromaticum, Eugenia caryophyllatum, garlic clove. 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 clove a common word?

clove 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.