quarter-cleft, a. and n. Chiefly dial.
Also 7 -cliff, 9 -clift.
[See cleft n. and ppl. a.]
A. adj. (See quots.) rare—0.
| 1850 Ogilvie, Quarter-cleft Rod, a rod cleft at one end, the cleft extending to one-fourth of its length. 1882 Ibid., Quarter-cleft, said of timber cut from the centre to the circumference. |
B. n.
1. Wood cleft in four; quartered wood; also, one of the pieces produced by cleaving in four.
| 1641 Best Farm. Bks. (Surtees) 15 Wee gette the biggest of [the willows] riven with iron wedges into quarter-cliffe. Ibid., Shorte forke-shaftes, made of seasoned ashe, and quarter cliffe. 1887 Scott. Leader 21 Sept. 6 A large stick known in Tipperary as a ‘quarter-clift’. |
2. A slightly-crazed or ‘half-cracked’ person.
| 1831 Fraser's Mag. IV. 327 A mere nincompoop, or quarter-cliff or what else you will that implies feebleness of intellect. 1856 Chambers's Jrnl. V. 139 (Ulster Proverbs, etc.) An eccentric person..is said..to ‘want a square of being round’. The next degree of aberration constitutes a ‘quarter clift’. 1880 Antrim & Down Gloss., Quarter cleft, a crazy person. |