cleft means an opening, fissure, or V-shaped indentation made by or as if by splitting. It carries an Arena rating of 1763, earned across 7 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, cleft ranks #171 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #1,452 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #1,808 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #1,867 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
cleft is pronounced /ˈklɛft/.
Why “cleft” is a great word
A V-shaped opening, fissure, or indentation formed by or as if by a splitting force. From Middle English clift, from Old English ġeclyft ("split, cracked"), from Proto-West Germanic *klufti, from Proto-Germanic *kluftiz, equivalent to cleave ("to split") + -t ("-th"). Unlike a "fissure," which suggests a long, linear crack, or a "crevice," which implies a tight, constricted gap, a cleft is distinctly wedged and angular, carrying the violence of its making. It is the stark shadow in a cliff face, the precise parting of a chin or palate, the deep rift in a lightning-struck oak—a negative space shaped by a single, decisive act of division that stands as both wound and invitation.
Etymology
From Middle English clift, from Old English ġeclyft, from Proto-West Germanic *klufti, from Proto-Germanic *kluftiz, equivalent to cleave + -t (“-th”). Compare Dutch klucht (“coarse comedy”), Swedish klyft (“cave, den”), German Kluft. See cleave.
noun
- An opening, fissure, or V-shaped indentation made by or as if by splitting.e.g.“The river flows through a cleft in the mountains.”
- A piece made by splitting.e.g.“a cleft of wood”
- A disease of horses; a crack on the band of the pastern.
verb
- To syntactically separate a prominent constituent from the rest of the clause that concerns it, such as threat in "The threat which I saw but which he didn't see, was his downfall."
adj
- split, divided, or partially divided into two.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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