cleave
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But once you’ve sorted these details, you and your arborist can make your trees safer, healthier, more lovable, and less likely to cleave.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026
They are free to rein in the state legislature as long as they cleave reasonably close to their state constitutions and do not step outside interpretation into pure improvisation.
From Slate ● Nov. 26, 2025
The Scottish Premiership leaders enjoyed almost 70% possession but struggled to cleave out clear chances against a Croatian side hampered by injuries.
From BBC ● Dec. 10, 2024
Viral genome sequences indicate the teen was infected with the type of H5N1 typically found in wild birds and that it had mutated to better cleave to the respiratory tract.
From Salon ● Dec. 6, 2024
He felt his tongue cleave to his mouth, and his heart labouring.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
![]()
“Hey There Little Insect,” an impish folk-rocker, begs bugs not to bite, incorporating Bo Diddley’s signature clave rhythm.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
Hints of Cuban clave rhythms, Tin Pan Alley harmonies, Jewish melodies and piano licks swim through its overarching Romantic theme.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2024
But Mark Morris, perched on a stool and clacking out the rhythm with a pair of clave sticks, finds plenty to quarrel with as he oversees this rehearsal of his new work.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 21, 2022
You can see why radio likes it—the song is seriously insinuating, milking a jazzy Afro-Cuban piano clave better than anything this side of ’90s house.
From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2018
Some name trembled on every lip, and each one of us longed to shout a question: but tongue clave to palate, lips were too dry to open.
From The Claw by Cynthia Stockley
That’s why, if you don’t want your house cleaved in twain, diagnosing your trees is best left to a certified arborist.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026
And now at Royal Portrush in this year's Open Championship, Scheffler has cleaved open an advantage of four shots after 54 holes following a display of understated authority in the hazy Northern Irish sunshine.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2025
But within these macro trends, a divide has cleaved open.
From Slate ● Oct. 11, 2024
But I can’t remember anyone mentioning the last one, a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in 1999 that killed more than 2,000 people and cleaved the pavement outside of my uncle’s 7-Eleven store in Taichung.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 6, 2024
Her knees buckled, and her vision swam, and she wondered for a moment if this was dying, whether she’d been cleaved in two.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
![]()
Theoretically, cleaving the company’s interest in promoting concerts and filling venues from its interest in extracting the maximum in junk fees from powerless customers would do much to foster competition in the ticketing business.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2024
“Society of the Snow” is judicious in what we see of the actual cutting and cleaving.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2024
By purifying membrane proteins and enzymatically cleaving them to enrich glycopeptides, the team could identify the sites and structures of glycans -- complex and highly branched sugar chains -- and the amount of glycoproteins.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 25, 2023
First, his job is to act as an impartial observer, obeying the rules of forensic archaeology and cleaving to hard data.
From National Geographic ● Oct. 23, 2023
No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
![]()
Tony Wilmott, a senior archaeologist for Historic England, said Sycamore Gap got its name in the 1980s from the tree in the cleft of the wall.
From BBC ● Apr. 30, 2025
She’s desperate to find a refuge for herself, “a cleft in the rock of the world” that she could hide in, as she tells him after her secrets have been exposed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2025
He had the darkest eyelashes I’ve ever seen, short and tidy fingernails, and a cleft chin that could fit a Canadian loonie.
From Slate ● Dec. 17, 2024
The model will allow them to rapidly screen thousands of dietary and environmental factors in a laboratory dish before testing the impact of specific factors on cleft susceptibility in mouse models.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 22, 2024
Slowly they crawled up to the edge of the ring again, and peered through a cleft between two jagged stones.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
![]()
An illustration shows middle C having the scent of a rose; the C two octaves higher, jasmine; in the rumbly bass, clove and vanilla.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
The eels are sedated using clove oil so that Dr Evans and his PhD student group can easily measure them.
From BBC ● Aug. 30, 2025
Spices vary greatly and the last thing you want is a mole that is overpowered with cinnamon, allspice, clove, etc.
From Salon ● Jan. 4, 2025
One woman arrived with a clove of garlic and placed it down on the table before she started talking.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 10, 2024
Anyone with access to a compass and a clove of garlic could perform their own test, which is why the unmaking of the old ‘fact’ was so important.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
![]()
Foot and mouth disease is a highly contagious virus that affects cloven hooved animals.
From Reuters ● Jul. 20, 2022
Made with both graphite and acrylic, the busy scenes achieve an entrancing variety of tones: acres of newspaper gray, crinkling across the drawings’ shallow perspective, are periodically cloven by a sudden swath of velvety black.
From New York Times ● Sep. 9, 2021
“I expected cloven hoofs,” said one former NSC staffer.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 4, 2019
“Chilling Adventures” hurls everything it can into its narrative cauldron, including a cave like a Hellmouth and a prep school like a satanic Hogwarts, replete with cloven hooves and pentagrams.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 26, 2018
There was a flash as if lightning had cloven the roof.
From "The Two Towers" by J. R. R. Tolkien
![]()
Vocabulary lists containing cleave
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Two-Faced Words: Contronyms
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!