▪ I. cleft, clift, n.
Forms: 4–9 clift, (5–7 clifte, 5 clyft(e, 6 klyfft), 6– cleft. Also β 4–5 clif, 4–6 clyff(e, 6–8 cliff(e.
[Found in 13–14th c. in form clyft, clift, app. going back to an unrecorded OE. *clyft:—OTeut. klufti-z, f. kluƀ- weak grade of *kleuƀ-, cléof- to cleave. Cf. OHG. chluft (MHG., mod.G., and Du. kluft), ON. kluft, Sw. klyft, Da. klyft hole, cave, den, klöft cleft, chink, crevice. The subseq. change to cleft (which has never entirely displaced clift) is through assimilation to cleft, recent pa. pple. of cleave. In 16–18th c. this word appears to have been almost completely confounded with cliff, the two forms cliff, clift, being used promiscuously for both words: see the quotations marked β, and see cliff, clift.]
1. gen. A space made by cleaving, splitting, or separation of parts; a split, fissure, crack, crevice.
| a 1300 Cursor M. 19842 He loked to þe lift, And sagh þar in a mikel clift. c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. iii. ix. 83 Se hem ryȝt as þouȝ it were þoruȝ a litel clifte. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 81 Clyff, clyft, or ryfte, sissura, rima. 1530 Palsgr. 206/1 Clyft of a tree, crevx. 1555 Eden Decades W. Ind. iii. viii. (Arb.) 173 The ryftes and clyftes. 1615 Crooke Body of Man 644 The Cleft or Fissure in the Larynx. 1704 Addison Italy (1766) 47 There are narrow clifts in the monument. 1776 Withering Bot. Arrangem. (1796) I. 220 Petal, bell-shaped..Border with 6 clefts. 1796 H. Glasse Cookery ii. 12 If..the clift in her lip spread much, she [a hare] is old. 1798 Coleridge Anc. Mar. i. xiv, Through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen. 1847–9 Todd Cycl. Anat. IV. 739/1 This hollow [in a horse's foot] is termed the cleft of the frog. 1880 Haughton Phys. Geog. iv. 168 The Red Sea and Valley of Jordan..form a narrow cleft of great depth. |
† b. A parting (of the hair). Obs. rare.
| a 1300 Cursor M. 18837 (Cott.) In hefd he had a clift beforn, Als nazarens has þat þar er born. |
(β) form cliff.
| c 1325 [see 2 a]. 1440 [see 1]. 1535 Coverdale Judg. vi. 2 The children of Israel made them clyffes in y⊇ mountaynes, and caues and holdes. 1555 Eden Decades W. Ind. (Arb.) 357 Searchyng the clyffes of theyr ryftes. 1575 Turberv. Venerie 53 The litile clyffes or streakes therein. 1609 Bible (Douay) 2 Esdras xvi. 29 In thicke woodes, and cliffes of rockes. 1670 W. Simpson Hydrol. Ess. 63 The stony quarry, full of cleffs. 1670 J. Pettus Fod. Regal. iii. 3 The cliffs or chincks of Rocks. 1694 [see 2 c]. |
2. spec. a. The parting of the thighs, the ‘cleaving’ or ‘fork’. Now dial.
| c 1325 Gloss. W. de Biblesw. in Wright Voc. 148 La furchure, the clif [MS. Arund. & Camb. cleft]. c 1386 Chaucer Sompn. T. 437 Doun his hond he launcheth to the clifte. 1664 Cotton Scarron. 60 From her Armpits or her Cliffe. 1826 J. Wilson Noct. Ambr. Wks. 1855 I. 289 Legs and thees a' o' ae thickness frae cute to cleft. |
b. A split made by partially cleaving a tree or the like; esp. a slit or split to receive a graft.
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. xxxi. (1495) 622 The reid..is somwhat clouen for to yeue ynke the better, and the ryght syde of the clyfte is somwhat lenger than the lyfte syde. 1481 Caxton Reynard viii. (Arb.) 15 Bruyn..put his heed ouer his eeris in to the clyft of the tree. 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. ii. (1586) 74 b, You must take heed..that the cleft be not to slacke nor to strait. 1601 Holland Pliny xvii. xiv. (R.), That the clift of the stocke gape not too much (as being over wide for the graffe). 1693 Evelyn De la Quint. Compl. Gard. III. 110 You may make an end of stretching, or closing the Cleft..when the Graff, or Graffs are plac'd as they should be. 1712–1851 [see 5]. |
c. A crack of the skin, a chap; a disease of the feet of horses.
| 1576 Baker Jewell of Health 210 a, It helpeth all the clefts and chops happening on the handes and feete in the winter tyme. 1599 A. M. tr. Gabelhouer's Bk. Physicke 266/1 For cleftes of the Lippes, Handes, Woemens Pappes, and Heeles. 1694 Lond. Gaz. No. 3003/4 Lost..a brown bay Mare.. with a cliff behind. 1727 Bradley Fam. Dict., Clift's, call'd otherwise Cracks in the Heels, a Disease incident to Horses. a 1755 Farrier's Dict. (J.), Clefts appear on the bought of the pasterns. |
d. Surg. The aperture in cleft palate (see next).
| 1847 South tr. Chelius' Surg. I. 606 If in very large cleft the closure be difficult. 1885 T. Holmes Syst. Surg. (ed. 3) II. 502 It will be frequently found that these partial clefts are very broad. |
† 3. One of the pieces formed by cleaving; esp. split wood for fuel. Obs. or dial.
| a 1400–50 Alexander 799 Þat all to-wrasted þai wod, & warpyd in-sonder, All claters in clyftez, clene to þair fistez. 1527 MS. Acc. St. John's Hosp. Canterb., Carriage of a lode of clyftis and pylys. 1562 Ludlow Church. Acc. (1869) 110 A klyfft to make steyes for the belle whelles. 1640 MS. Acc. St. John's Hosp. Canterb., For helpinge to lood the cleffts to make pales and railes. 1669 Worlidge Syst. Agric. vi. §10 (1681) 108 Good cleft for the fire. 1887 Scott. Leader 21 Sept. 6 ‘Wheeling’ a large stick known in Tipperary as a ‘quarter clift’. |
b. A strip of glass as cut by the glazier.
| 1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. 384/2 The Glasiers Diamond..by which he cuts his Glass..into Lengths or Clifts, and from such long pieces or Clifts into shorter pieces as Squares or Quarryes. |
4. A division formed by cleaving: spec. a. one of the divisions of the foot in animals; b. one of the divisions of an orange or similar fruit (dial.).
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xviii. xix. (1495) 778 The camell is clouefotyd and hath felles in the clyftes..and those clyftes ben flesshly as the clifte of a beers fote. 1578 Lyte Dodoens iii. xxxix. 371 With leaves cloven or cut into five, sixe, or seven cliftes. 1611 Bible Deut. xiv. 6 Euery beast that parteth the hoofe, and cleaueth the clift into two clawes. 1674 N. Cox Gentl. Recreat. i. (1706) 44 In a Greyhound..a round Foot, and good large Clefts. 1842 Prichard Nat. Hist. Man 32 The hoof of the swine is also found divided into 5 clefts. |
5. attrib. and Comb., as cleft-hole; cleft-nursed adj.; cleft-graft v. to graft in a cleft (see 2 b); so cleft-grafted ppl. a.; cleft-grafting vbl. n.
| 1669 Worlidge Syst. Agric. (1681) 25 Cutting off the head of the Stock, and smooth it as in Cleft-graffing. 1712 Mortimer Husb. (J.), Filberts may be cleft-grafted on the common nut. 1731–59 Miller Gard. Dict. (R.), Cleft-grafting..also called stock or slit-grafting, is proper for trees or stocks of a lesser size. 1747 Hooson Miner's Dict. s.v. Noger, Their bigness is about an inch at least, for either Blast-holes, or Clift-holes. 1851 Glenny Handbk. Fl. Gard. 228 They may be..cleft-grafted like the rose. 1868 Browning Ring & Bk. x. 1040 This mere chance-sown, cleft-nursed seed. |
▪ II. cleft, ppl. a.
(klɛft)
[One of the forms of the pa. pple. of cleave v.1: cf. cloven.]
Split asunder; split into thin pieces.
| 1393 Gower Conf. II. 264 Tho lay there certain wode cleft. c 1520 Mem. Ripon (Surtees) III. 206, xiij peysses of clyft wodd, 20d. 1688 R. Holme Armoury ii. 86/1 A Billet is a piece of Cleft Wood for to Burn. 1715–20 Pope Iliad ii. 508 From the cleft wood the crackling flames aspire. 1821 J. Baillie Met. Leg., Calum vi. 16 Cleft waves. |
b. Split or divided to a certain depth; bifurcate. cleft palate: a malformation of the palate, in which a longitudinal gap exists in the middle or on either side of the roof of the mouth. a cleft stick: a position in which advance and retreat are alike impossible, a dilemma, a fix. † cleft (or cloven) beasts: insects. Rarely in cleft hoof, cleft foot, where cloven is the ordinary word.
| 1574 T. Hill Ord. Bees i, Plinie nameth Bees cleft beasts because of the division or parting betweene of the heade and shoulders. [Ibid. vi, Of all cloven beasts the bees are principally to be cherished.] 1647 Cowley Mistr., Not Fair, So men..Believe it fair..Till the cleft foot discovers all. 1697 Dryden Virg. Past. x. 16 Not steepy Pindus..Nor cleft Parnassus. a 1745 Swift Wks. (1841) II. 355 You may..stick your candle in a bottle..or a cleft stick. 1782 Cowper Corr. Wks. 1837 XV. 106 We are squeezed to death, between the two sides of that sort of alternative which is commonly called a cleft stick. 1784 Reynolds in Leslie & Taylor Life (1865) II. viii. 458, I put him in a cleft stick. 1829 Gen. P. Thompson Corn Laws in Exerc. (1842) I. 95 The other side are in a cleft stick; they cannot go on long as they are, and they cannot stir into any new path without demolishing the Corn Laws. 1847 Carpenter Zool. §254 The surfaces..are so flattened that the appearance is that of a single cleft hoof. 1847 South tr. Chelius' Surg. I. 599 Cases of hare-lip and cleft-palate. 1878 T. Bryant Pract. Surg. I. 527 Having..successfully treated a medical student for cleft palate. 1880 Gray Struct. Bot. iii. §4. 98 A leaf..is said to be cleft, when the division is half way down or more, and the lobes or sinuses narrow or acute. 1885 Arnold's Catal. Surg. Instrum. 190 Cleft-palate knife..cleft-palate chisel. |
c. fig. Divided, twofold.
| 1597 Shakes. Lover's Compl. 293 O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath. |
d. Linguistics (esp. Transformational Grammar). cleft sentence, a two-clause sentence derived by transformation from a single clause in order to emphasize a particular element of the clause, the resultant sentence starting with it is or another form of the verb to be (as ‘it is x that we want’ from ‘we want x’). Similarly, cleft construction.
| 1937 O. Jespersen Analytic Syntax xxv. 83 (heading) Cleft Sentences... A fourth class of sentences beginning with it is. 1963 R. B. Lees in Zeitschr. für Phonetik Sprachwissensch. XVI. 371 At least three different analyses have been proposed for the so-called ‘Cleft-sentence’ construction in English. 1976 Archivum Linguisticum VII. 146 The mechanism of cleft construction can be used to predicate and bring into focus any of the grammatical (modal) functions: subject, object, adjunct. 1982 R. Quirk Style & Communication in Eng. Lang. i. 14 There is..the over-use of the cleft sentence to provide little-wanted focus upon time adverbials. |
▪ III. † cleft, clift, v. Obs. rare.
[f. the n. or pa. pple.]
intr. To divide, split, cleave.
| 1610 W. Folkingham Art of Survey i. viii. 17 That Earth, that by moulding in the hand doth clift and cleaue. 1657 Tomlinson Renou's Disp. 668 Almonds..must be macerated long in warm water..that the cortex may cleft. |
▪ IV. cleft
pa. tense and pa. pple. of cleave1; rarely of cleave2.