▪ I. cleaver1
(ˈkliːvə(r))
Also 5 clevere, 6 clyuer, 7 clever, cleever.
[f. cleave v.1 + -er.]
1. One who cleaves or splits (wood, etc.).
| 1483 Cath. Angl. 67 Clevere, fissor. 1583 Golding Calvin on Deut. clxvi. 1026 Euen from the Clyuer of thy wood, to the drawer of thy water. a 1617 Hieron Wks. (1619–20) II. 476 Get away..if thou be a cleauer, to thy wedge and an axe. 1688 Lond. Gaz. No. 2332/2 Cleavers and Carriers of Wood. 1879 Butcher & Lang Odyss. iv. 5 Achilles, cleaver of the ranks of men [ἀχιλλῆος ῥηξήνορος]. |
2. a. An instrument for cleaving; spec. a butcher's chopper for cutting up carcasses.
[Rogers Agric. & Pr. refers to ‘cleavers’ under 1449, 1550, 1554, 1566; language of record not stated.]
| 1580 Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong., Couperet, a butcher's knife, a cleauer. 1633 Massinger New Way v. i, Cook. If that I had my cleaver here, I would divide your knaves head. 1868 Stanley Westm. Abb. ii. 99 The Royal Cook stood at the door of the Abbey with his cleaver. |
b. marrow-bones and cleavers: freq. referred to as instruments of ‘rough music’.
| c 1712 Arbuthnot (J.), With huzzas and hunting horns, and ringing the changes on butchers cleavers. 1716–8 Lady M. W. Montague Lett. I. xxxvii. 145 As if a foreigner should take his ideas of English music from..the marrow-bones and cleavers. 1765 B. Thornton (title), Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, adapted to the ancient British Musick; viz. the Salt-box, Jew's-Harp, the Marrow-bones and Cleavers, the Hum⁓strum or Hurdy-gurdy, etc. 1801 Strutt Sports & Past. iv. i. 260. |
c. Archæol. A primitive core-tool with a sharp edge at one end.
| 1935 Nature 21 Sept. 475/1 In Uganda this stage marks the beginning of a large-core technique for the manufacture of coups de poing and cleavers. 1959 J. D. Clark Prehist. S. Afr. ii. 41 Cleaver, a similar all-purpose tool but with an axe-like cutting edge, usually at right-angles to the long axis. |
▪ II. ˈcleaver2 rare.
[f. cleave v.2 + -er.]
One who, or that which, cleaves or adheres; (in quot.) an adherent attribute.
| 1674 N. Fairfax Bulk & Selv. 48 Body, and the cleavers to it, are further off from the God-like nature, than the soul is. |
▪ III. cleaver, -ly
obs. forms of clever, -ly.