▪ I. calve
obs. form of calf.
▪ II. calve, v.1
(kɑːv)
Also 5 calfe, 5–6 calue, 7 calf, (9 dial. cauve).
[OE. cealfian, f. cealf calf n.1; cf. the corresp. MHG. kalben, Du. kalven, Sw. kalfva, Da. kalve. See sense 3.]
1. a. intr. To give birth to a calf. Said of kine, deer, etc.; cf. calf n.1 1, 3.
| c 1000 ælfric Hom. II. 300 Ða wolde heo [seo cu] cealfian on ᵹesihðe þæs folces. 1388 Wyclif Job xxi. 10 The cow caluyed [1382 bar] and is not priued of hir calf. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. xlix. (1495) 632 A Hynde..etith this herbe [diptannus] that she may calue eselier and soner. 1523 Fitzherb. Husb. §70 If a cowe be fatte, whan she shall calve, than..the calfe shall be the lesse. 1674 tr. Scheffer's Lapland xxviii. 131 The does..calve about May. 1828 Scott F.M. Perth II. 293 ‘What's the matter?’ said Dwining, ‘whose cow has calved?’ 1860 Merc. Mar. Mag. VII. 213 They [whales] differ..in their habit of resorting to very shallow bays to calve. |
b. transf.
| 1667 Milton P.L. vii. 463 The grassie Clods now Calv'd, now half appeer'd The Tawnie Lion, pawing to get free His hinder parts. |
2. a. trans. To bring forth (a calf, or young).
| 1388 Wyclif Job xxi. 10 The cow..caluede [1382 bar] not a deed calf. 1532–3 Act 24 Hen. VIII, vii, Any maner yonge suckynge calfe..which shall happen to fall or to be calued. 1607 Shakes. Cor. iii. i. 240, I would they were Barbarians, as they are, Though in Rome litter'd: not Romans, as they are not, Though calued i' th' Porch o' th' Capitoll. 1846 J. Baxter Libr. Pract. Agric. II. 87 Of the origin of [the short horns]..little can be learned, prior to 1777, in which year the famous bull, Hubback, was calved. |
b. to calve down: to breed from (a cow). Also intr. = pass.
| 1858 Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc. XIX. i. 27 These stock are generally calved down when little more than two years old, or else sold. Ibid. 28, I have myself known stock costing 6 l. per head worth at the end of the same year 13 l. or 14 l., and the increase is just as great when they calve down. |
3. Of a glacier or iceberg: To detach and throw off a mass of ice. Cf. calf n.1 6, and calve v.2
| 1837 Macdougall tr. Graah's E. Coast Greenl. 104 The Greenlanders believe that..the reverberation caused by the utterance of a loud sound, is sufficient to make an iceberg calve. Ibid. 132 One of the numerous large ice-blinks..calved a very considerable berg. 1873 A. L. Adams Field & Forest Rambles xi. 280 A vast field of ice at one time poured down the slope into the long fiord below, where it calved its bergs. 1882 H. Lansdell Through Siberia I. 199 The icebergs ‘calved’ as they went along, with much commotion and splashing. |
▪ III. calve, v.2 dial.
[Of uncertain standing and derivation. It is possible that (kɑːv) is merely an earlier pronunciation of cave retained locally; but it is notable that calve in coincides in form and sense with W.Flemish in-kalven (cf. de gracht kalft in ‘the ditch caves in’ De Bo), in which the root part is the same as in Du. af-kalven, to fall or break away, uit-kalven to fall or shoot out, said of the sides of a cutting or the like. De Vries refers this -kalven to kalve, kaluwe, surface of the ground, surface layer or soil (see callow). In-kalven would thus signify the shooting in of the surface or earth above. Some, however, think that the word is, in its origin, identical with the preceding. The evidence is not decisive.
Calve (kɑːv, kɔːv) in, is the vernacular form in Lincolnshire, Notts, Hunts, Norfolk, and adjacent parts of Suffolk, Cambridge, Leicester, Derby, and Yorkshire. Wesley, who is quoted for it, was a native of Epworth, in the district covered by Mr. E. Peacock's Gloss. of Manley and Corringham, North Lincolnshire. Assuming the word to be from Dutch, it has been suggested that it was ‘introduced by the Dutch navvies who came over for the large drainage works in the Lincolnshire fens’ (Wedgwood).]
To fall in as an undermined bank or side of a cutting; to cave in.
| 1755 Wesley Wks. (1872) II. 323 The rock calved in upon him, with a concave surface, which just made room for his body. 1788 Ibid. VI. 521 Instantly part of the pit calved in, and crushed him to death. 1873 E. Peacock in N. & Q. Ser. iv. XII. 274 In this part of the world we all say calved in, never caved in. 1877 ― Manley & Corringham Gloss. (E.D.S.) Cauve, to slip down as earth does in a cutting or in a bank undermined by water. |